"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and the beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them."

-Genesis 6:7

01

Almost an hour later, time was still wasting away.

The same unspecific boy, though he could have been another, leaned against one wall of the hotel's upstairs hallway outside of a door into which Sophia had disappeared quite some time ago. He himself had already showered and changed his clothes-similar clothes, though the shorts were slightly darker and this version of the white zip-down sported a black trim and a collar and two pockets which were more for show than function-and now let his head fall back onto his shoulder as he nearly dozed in the pleasantly modulated heat. Someone passing by to their own room looked him over and chuckled faintly, shaking their heads as he nodded to vague and oblivious thoughts. First and foremost, however, was the thought that only a girl could have taken so long to wash and change. He decided that she was probably making him wait on purpose, and that he probably deserved it.

Simultaneous with that but before he could take it back was the hushed whisper of the door opening. Sophia touched his shoulder and giggled. "Hi Fayt. Sleeping?"

"Noooo..." It was a singularly odd name, not at all generic or average in this modern and practical society with its quiet and practical names, but it was in fact the same boy who answered to it; perhaps his only personal claim to complete individuality. He opened his eyes and pushed away from the wall, looking at Sophia wryly. She had changed into her favorite jeans, which hugged the hips she was not entirely happy with but he humbly thought added a much-needed feminine curve to her girlish figure, and a tank top with straps which barely qualified as such. The jeans were faded and missing their button; the top was the same artificial peppermint pink as the sweater before. They left a thin strip of her belly exposed, and its paleness looked odd beside the places she had tanned. Somehow, it made him smile. "But I was thinking about it. What took you so long? I mean, what were you doing all that time?"

"Just changing. I didn't take that long, did I?" She looked slightly hurt again, and tucked her hands behind herself to blink innocently up at him. The look broke in a moment around a grin as she leaned forward. "Be-sides. You kept me waiting for how long? Serves you right!"

Sophia was turning into a mind reader. Fayt grimaced again, lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck sheepishly. "Right, right."

She giggled again. Sometimes Fayt had to wonder if she was laughing with him or just at him, but she took his arm and swung about to one side of him, eyes crinkled faintly with humor, and it didn't really matter when she put it that way. "So. Shall we?"

He took a step to keep up with her, laughing. "Okay. Just don't yank my arm off!"

"Oh, you big baby. Between the sports and the simulators, I thought you were supposed to be some kind of muscle-man." Still, she released her hold, letting her hand slip down into his again as they headed down the long peaceful hall to the interior transporters. "I'm surprised you have time left to study in."

"Hey now. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, nothing. Just...You know, with uncle Robert and aunt Ryoko, we've got some pretty big shoes to fill. And you don't exactly spend a lot of your free time on schoolwork-"

"Schoolwork is meant for school!" He protested, looking down at her with a frown. "Besides. Who said we had to follow in my parents' footsteps? They're their own people, Sophia. And so are we."

"Oh, I know that!" She looked up at him, saw his frown, and drew her own brows together slightly. It was obvious that she wanted to say something without shattering the levity of the afternoon but could not quite figure out how, and that it frustrated her. "Just...Oh, Fayt. We're stuck in the shadows of the galaxy's greatest genomorphists. And symbology's an awfully complicated field if you don't really care."

"I care." Fayt realized he sounded defensive, but also that he felt that way as well. Seated comfortably in the passing center of his class ranking, Fayt was aware of unwhispered rumors that his grades were buoyed by his father's prestigious rank and name. They were not of course-he worked very hard to hold that high 'C'-and so persistent though they were, the rumors bothered him less and with less regularity than the occasional, purely spontaneous 'change your major you slacker' lectures from Sophia. "I do care. I think it's a really interesting field of study. I mean, come on. It's...magic. It's the stuff stories and dreams and games and every mythology that's ever been is made of. I'm just not worried about who I'm as good as or better than, that's all. After all, it's not spacetime theory-there aren't a lot of giant breakthroughs to be made anymore. Nobody makes a name for themselves on symbology these days. And that's fine by me."

"You don't care about much of anything, do you. I just can't imagine you turning into some mousy little researcher somewhere." She nudged him with her elbow. "You'd have to give up all your games for that, you know. No more VR. No more basketball. Come on, Fayt... Don't you ever feel you should aspire to anything? Isn't there anything you want out of life?"

He considered that deeply for a moment, pausing as the transport room door opened automatically at their approach. He considered telling her he wanted her to stop sounding like his mother and have a little bit of faith in him. He considered telling her that just wasn't fair. He considered, very briefly, grabbing her and shaking her and asking where the hell she got off saying that to him, what the hell she would know, little miss scholarship at seventeen. The thought made him so ashamed he felt his ears turn red. Instead, he turned her with their joined hands until she faced him, and took hold of her other one as well. "...Yes. Yes there is. You know what I want very, very much out of life?"

"Hmn? What's that?"

Lifting their hands up he grinned, turning to pull her along as he backed into the transport room with its lines of sleek, tiny interior units pressed against walls between the potted plants. "I want to take a long pleasant walk through the hotel with beautiful spacetime theorist Sophia Esteed, who will someday-probably before graduation-solve the mysteries of Styx and the fourth dimension wall, and be much too famous and busy to waste her day with a sorry bum like me."

"Oh, I will not!" This of course had exactly the desired effect. Sophia laughed, releasing Fayt's hands to shove him lightly. The last narrow look of irritation lingering from before melted from her eyes and he was forgiven, now, of all his transgressions. Until next time, at least. "Silly. Just get in the transporter."

He did, of course, relieved to have escaped any possible retribution later and the inevitable motivational speech in one fell swoop. There were only two buttons on this particular transport unit-for the second and ground floors-so the selection was simple. He touched the flat lightpanel beneath his hand and watched it ripple around his finger, before he and his hand vanished into a shimmering sheet of white light. Watched it reappear again in the same. It left him with a faint chill in the center of his skull, as transport usually did, but it was such an inherent part of his life that Fayt ignored it by now. Here, it was only noticeable because of the brilliantly warm weather. He shook his head faintly to clear it and stepped out of the unit, jogging slightly ahead of Sophia as she stepped out of her own transporter and then turning to walk backwards, facing her, as he went through the automatic door.

"So. Is there anywhere you really want to see?" Looking around the hallways-wider here on the ground floor, which housed the lobby and conference center and rec room and myriad other facilities-Fayt saw nothing of particular interest to him, but did not say so. Towards the end of the hall in the long threads of light tossed through the glassy outer walls a tall and vaguely slanted man with patrician features was spouting melodramatic pseudo-poetry to a startled looking woman as she passed by, and stopped to stare at him in a sort of morbid fascination. Fayt too paused as he went on in raptures about the sealed power of good and evil behind the closed door he stood before, but shrugged and continued as Sophia passed him by. "...Wow. What was his problem?"

"Huh? Oh. I think he's Alphalian." She paused, and giggled. "It would explain why he thinks that storage closet he's 'guarding' is the door between here and Daemonium. There are some funny people in the galaxy, aren't there?"

"Oh, that was mean Sophia. Alphalian's aren't crazy-just...self-absorbed." He grinned. "And trapped in a giant, badly-written eighteenth century stageplay."

"So they're crazy."

"Delusional."

"...Fayt, if you thought God had sent you to a vacation resort to protect the mortal realm from celestial damnation in the closet, you would be crazy."

"But at least I'd be ambitious."

"No," She said patiently, tilting her head to him, "these are not the same thing. Hey, what's this room here?" Sophia referred to a door depressed back into the last bit of solid wall before giving way to glass and the sprawling view outside. It was a quaint door, not hydraulic or electric but painted across the surface to look like wood. Hidden in the outstretched fronds of two massive plants set at either side of it, it was nearly invisible except for the cheery glint of a small, brassy manual knob.

Fayt walked to the door and reached out, pushing the branches aside. Beside the false wood of the door, a bright metal plaque proclaimed it to be the Entertainment Room. This told him absolutely nothing. "...I don't know." He reached for the handle.

"Is it okay to just...go in?"

"Sure it is. Everything on the ground floor is either public domain or marked employees only. Besides, with a name like 'Entertainment Room' how could it be off-limits?" He looked back at her, smiling reassuringly and just a little bit teasingly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"If it's not off-limits, you probably don't think it's a real adventure." Still, when he did not proceed she sighed, and waved him on. "Well? Let's take a look. If they want us to keep out I guess it'll be locked."

Victory. Fayt twisted the knob and pushed it open, turning to look back at Sophia over his shoulder as he began to step inside. "Right. That's the spiri-"

"Hey hey hey!" From somewhere around the level of his waist came a new voice, high and chirping as a bird but not by any means quiet. He turned quickly, jerking back as he did so when a bounding bundle of dark skin and bright clothing skidded to a halt before him with a jingle of bells and bangles. "Whaaaaat's this? Who are you? This is the Rossetti's dressing room, you know!" Eyes. Very large, very green eyes peered up at him critically, and they defined the overwhelming nature of the child in a stark first impression. She was small, her skin hazelnut dark with cream-colored hair pulled into a collection of braids and curls and ponytails by strings of beads and golden rings. Dressed in bright shades of pink and red and black, weighted and adorned by bells of all sizes and manners with her small fingers hidden beneath rings and her wrists buried in fat bracelets, Fayt found he did not know what to do or say in the face of this strange, vocal pile of costume clothing and jewelry. He blinked at her as Sophia peered around his shoulder to do the same, and the little girl suddenly clapped her hands. The sound of her palms meeting was drowned by the jingle and click of her bizarre ensemble.

"Oh! Oh oh, I know! You want my autograph, don't you? Yes! Oh, well, I guess I have to keep the fans happy you know. But you're lucky-usually I'd be mad, so mad if someone came barging in like that but you know you're kinda cute so I'll make a' exception this time. Okay?" She clasped her hands behind her, and in front of her, and then behind her again as she bounced and rocked on her feet, all criticism gone in a laugh.

Fayt tried to take a step back, not really wanting to deal with someone who clearly was either hyped out on too many synthetic sweeteners or just wasn't entirely there, but Sophia pushed him forward again. "Where's your sense of adventure, Fayt?"

Not fair. That absolutely. Positively. Was not fair. There was a distinct reason he did not like being trapped between two girls, and age did not matter-Sophia and his mother had ganged up on him far too often for him to believe that it did. He looked desperately for an exit, but saw only the brightly lit room beyond the child: it was filled with mirrors, crates, and bright stage props, with oddly-dressed figures ranging from the child before him to a hulking mountain of a man at the back wall, his bald head gleaming in the light as he shifted weighty objects from one place to the other. He paused, offered Fayt a dim but friendly smile, and went back to work. No help there. Fayt cleared his throat. "Uhm...they...we...uh, you said the Rossettis...?"

"What's this? All this way and you don't even know the troupe's name?" Her cheeks puffed out in an exaggerated sigh, and she reached up to snatch his hand, tugging him forward. "Rossetti, Rossetti! Don't go forgetting it now! Say, what's your name, huh? What's your name?"

Bewildered, he allowed himself to be tugged forward. It did not help that Sophia, giggling at the trouble his curiosity had landed him in, pushed him along. "It's Fayt, but-"

"And Sophia. I'm Sophia."

"Right, Right! Hey, hold still okay?" The lively girl seemed to ignore Sophia except to flash her a smile of dazzlingly white teeth as she flounced around to Fayt's back. He heard a light 'popping' noise, and she tugged on the bottom of his shirt.

"Huh? Wha-?" As Fayt tried to twist his body around enough to see just what, exactly, was going on behind him he heard Sophia muffle a squeak which was either shock or laughter, and felt a light, clumsy pressure slide roughly along the bottom of the shirt beside the girl's grip.

"To...my...dar-ling...Fayt... From the Fairy of Illusions, Peppita Rossetti ...and...that's...it!" The pop was repeated, and the girl clapped again, sounding quite proud and satisfied with herself. "All done! Isn't it wonderful?" Stepping out the way, she gestured with a flourish to the back of Fayt's shirt.

Sophia bit her lip. "What did you-"

"Hey!" Fayt had finally managed to get a glimpse of the travesty inflicted upon his favorite shirt. Across the bottom, in fat, clumsily straggling black marker lines, an ugly and lopsided smiling face had been drawn, and beneath it lines which may or may not have been something resembling a signature, if viewed right-side up, but from his vantage point looked an awful lot more like an explosion in ink. "You can't just draw on people's shirts like that!"

Suddenly, quite a bit of the exuberance drained out of the girl. She looked vaguely uncertain. Her pearly smile faltered. "Huh...? What? But, I thought you wanted my autograph?"

For Sophia, the novelty seemed to have worn off of the encounter. She put a hand on her hip and lifted one finger at the little girl reprovingly. "Nobody said anything about wanting any autographs! You owe Fayt an apology for that."

"But...huh?" She tilted her head at the both of them, bobbing up on the toes of her decorated shoes and twisting them on the floor slightly, until her stance became pigeon-toed and sheepish. "I mean, but, what-I thought...uhm. Then you...want my mama's autograph? Or my papa's?" Now she looked down, face and voice falling until she was nearly mumbling, sounding abject and small. Despite the insult of his shirt, Fayt found himself feeling almost sorry for her. "You...you can't want Gonnella the Clown's autograph more than mine...or Ursus the Strongman's...right?"

"No." Not knowing who any of those people were, Fayt shook his head. "We're not really looking for anyone's autograph, actually."

Looking up at him in a way that was almost shy, the girl seemed to consider this for a moment before lowering onto her heels, then bouncing up again as if rejuvenated by some strange magic. "Huh! Well! What then- Heeeeey." She began to wander around him in a wide circle, and Fayt turned with her warily. He did not want to be written on again. The girl, however, was eyeing him with suspicion. "Are you a salesman? Or-no, actually, you don't look like you've done an an honest day's work in your life. So! I know!" Her remark about an honest day's work set Sophia to giggling all over again, and Fayt shot her a dirty look. But the girl had stopped, and was pointing at him accusingly with her weighted fingers. Her other hand was planted firmly on her hip, and her feet spread in a wide brace as if she meant to push him out. "You're here to collect on a loan! That's it, isn't it! Well you're too early-they promised, that loan's good 'til next month. They promised!"

"No...no!" Lifting his hands defensively, Fayt backed away a step, shaking his head again. "Look, you've got it all wrong. Who are the Rossettis, anyway? And what's with this 'Fairy of Illusion' stuff?"

"Hummmmn...okay." She lowered her finger slowly, looking from Fayt to Sophia, and back to Fayt again. "Sooooo, you two are just lost?"

"Well, we're not really lost-"

"Oh no! Then you're robbers!"

"No!" He stepped back again, bumping the door frame, as she swung her arm at him. The tiny hand itself was less threatening than the long drape of red fabric hanging from one fat bangle, and the massive bead at the end of it. He did not want to be smacked around by five pounds of costume jewelry. "We're not that either!"

"Then what are you? You're not one of my fans, you're not here to collect on our loan, you're not lost..." She stomped her foot impatiently. "So just what do you think you're doing barging into our room like this!"

"Well, um..." He glanced back to Sophia-who shrugged helplessly-and then looked back to the girl. Not certain what to say, Fayt rubbed at the back of his neck and went with apology. "I'm sorry for barging into your room. It looked like just a part of the facilities, and we were just taking a little walk to check the place out, so we were curious...right, Sophia?"

Sophia nodded. "Mm-hmn."

The girl looked up at them incredulously, mouth set in an angled line. "...A walk."

"That's right." Fayt nodded to her again, relieved that the crisis seemed to be winding down. "A walk."

There was silence for a moment, as the girl stretched her hands up above her head and turned a slow, lazy circle on her heel. "Barging into people's rooms. ..isn't called...taking...a...walk!" She stomped down again on the last word, pointing at Fayt once more so violently that the giant bead-and-bangle swung up again, nearly smacking him in the chest before it looped over the child's arm instead. "That's for burglars! Or lost kids, or stalkers, or groupies, or-"

"Uh, well, okay. Then...We're lost."

Sophia leaned forward, reaching out to touch his arm. "Let's just get out of here, Fayt."

He shifted so that he was in the doorway itself instead of backed against the frame, and nodded. "Good idea."

This time, the girl seemed disinclined to interrupt them. She sniffled, and with a heavy sigh-and accompanying clank and jangle-sank down to crouch on the ground, drawing slow dejected squiggles on the floor between her feet with one finger. "So you really were just lost. That explains it. And here I thought you were my very first fan..." She paused in her invisible art to wrap her arms around her thin knees, and shook her head. "But...it's not like I've performed yet. I guess it did seem a little strange. Gosh, I'm so stupid..."

The two students exchanged a helpless glance. Fayt couldn't have simply left the girl like that, looking as though she was about to cry, any more than Sophia would have let him. They both knew it. And so, since it was Fayt whose words however misunderstood had made her miserable, it was Fayt who had to make it better. He stepped back towards the girl, and dropped into a crouch of his own before her. "...You're a performer?"

"Uh-huh. That's right. We're the Rossetti Troupe-" Again, life seemed charged back into her like current through a wire, and she bounded to her feet with a flourishing, surprisingly elegant pirouette which she closed with a sweeping bow and dramatic pose. "-And we bring you a fleeting vision of the future! I'm your fairy guide, Peppita Rossetti!"

Fayt blinked at her.

"...If you need it in plain Terran, we're a circus troupe." She flapped her arms in exasperation, before clasping them behind her and smiling at him again. "And I...am sort of the host."

He decided, fixed with those big bright eyes and that big bright grin, shoulders up ready to defend her position and dark cheeks faintly colored with an uncertain but steadfast childish pride, that this Peppita Rossetti was quite nearly the most endearing child he had ever seen...at least, when she wasn't ruining his clothes or trying to beat him with jewelry or calling him a robber. He grinned back at her. "Oh. So this shirt with your signature's going to be worth something then?"

"Well of course! It's the first autograph I ever signed, you know!"

"The first? Now, I don't believe that."

"Yup. Tomorrow's my debut, but in six months, why, you could buy a..." She looked around the room for something suitably costly and then settled for turning back to him and gesturing broadly-a sweeping, all-encompassing whoosh of her tiny arms. "You could buy a whole planet with that shirt!"

Biting his lip to hold back a laugh at her solemnity, Fayt stood up and put a hand on his hip. "Oh yeah? Amazing. An entire planet. I guess I'll have to take good care of it won't I."

She seemed elated for a second before her face fell into suspicion again. "Hey...you don't believe me?"

"No, I do. I really do." He paused, then shrugged and took a chance by putting a hand on her head and ruffling what little of the thick creamy hair was loose enough to be mussed. "I'm sure you'll be dynamite on the stage."

Peppita giggled, and stuck out her tongue slightly, but did not protest the treatment. "Hee...thanks! And you know, I'm in such a good mood, so I'll give this little present to you! A magical gift from the beautiful fairy Peppita to you, her first fan!" With another flourish-her ability to catch the eye, at least, was well-assured-Peppita produced from seemingly nowhere but probably the nest of bangles on her arm a pair of thin white slips. She held them out, so bright against her skin the elegant scrawl of words on their surface seemed to leap from the cardstock.

Fayt took them with a faint feeling of puzzlement. It intensified when he read the script, made out in myriad languages, which invited him to an evening of magic and mystery, and a fleeting glimpse of the beautiful future. "A...ticket?"

"Yeah, for our show tomorrow!" She pointed at him again, not accusing this time but insistent. "You'd better not miss it, Fayt! After you see us do our thing, you'll really want to treasure that autograph! For the rest of your life, even!"

He turned halfway in the door to show the tickets to Sophia, who took one from him to run her hand across the surface in a marvel at the strange texture-thick as stock and smooth as vellum. It made her smile. "What pretty writing."

"It's my mama's." She nodded proudly. "So, you'll be there? Promise?"

This time, it was Sophia who answered her. "Of course we will. Right, Fayt?"

"Without a doubt. Thank you, Peppita. I'm really looking forward to the show."

"Great!" With a last flounce and flourish she bounded away from them, tossing a wave over her shoulder as she returned to whatever she had been occupied with before their unauthorized entry. They were, apparently, dismissed. "See you later, Fayt! Sophia! And don't forget the show!"

Free at last, the two returned to the peaceful safety of the hall. Heaving identical sighs of relief, they stared at each other for a moment in silence.

Sophia broke it with a giggle. "Well, that was certainly an adventure. Serves you right, Fayt."

"What? What do you mean, 'serves me right'? Look, we got a free ticket out of it, didn't we?" Which only made Sophia laugh harder. Defensive though he tried to remain, it was difficult to stay even playfully serious in the face of her light, infectious giggling. He grinned, and waved his ticket triumphantly for a moment before tucking it into his pocket. "...Besides. She was a cute kid. I'm sure she'll steal the show. Now come on. Let's walk some more."

Still giggling softly as she took up a place beside him, Sophia shook her head. "You don't want to change your shirt?"

"Call it 'advertising'." He was still a little sore about the shirt-for all that it was exactly like his others, it was his favorite-but he would get over it and the marker, hopefully, would wash out. He turned his head to watch the beach far below pass by as they walked the length of the glass outer wall. His parents, probably, were down there somewhere, and that alone had been a good enough reason not to join Sophia on the beach though he would not have admitted it. His mother would have ribbed him endlessly about finally leaving his games and getting some sun. After that, who knew where the lectures would turn? She still talked to him as though he were a child. "Besides, everything we want to see is down here."

"All right." Sophia paused, leaning over a particularly large and vibrant spray of flowers in a potted plant, and then jogged slightly to catch up when Fayt did not stop as well. "...But what do we want to see?"

"Don't know. We could..." He looked around, realizing that no, he did not have a plan. They passed the door to the lounge as it slid open and discharged a whining boy and his mother-who, in the time-honored universal manner of females in general, chided him for wasting his time on silly games-and he was struck by sudden inspiration. Taking Sophia's hand, he stopped, and tugged her back slightly. "Here. We could go to the lounge."

Where the games were. Which Sophia knew. She looked at him suspiciously. "Fayt-"

The boy raised his hands in submission. "I was just thinking we could check to see if the hotel had any events scheduled."

She looked him up and down suspiciously, as though the truth would be printed plainly somewhere on his person. It was not, and in the end she only snorted faintly. "Hmph. Liar. All right, but if we see anything we are going to go do it, you know."

"Gotcha." Before she could change her mind Fayt had her hand again, and pulled her back towards the lobby until she lengthened her steps, in case she decided to get away. Because of course she was right, and he did have an ulterior motive in the form of some very new updates in the combat simulators which he had just remembered. He had not had a chance to try them, because Sophia had come in on him with her fiery wrath while he was taking a break. It did not seem like the kind of thing she would have approved of, but Fayt thought that he might, maybe, if he handled things just so, be able to talk her into letting him play some more.

The door hissed open and he was once again immersed in the particolor brightness of the lounge with its large fountain and myriad screens, displaying everything from cartoons to movies to the latest news broadcasts. At each corner of the room was a door marked Simulation Center housing the virtual reality systems, but it was a little early for that yet and Sophia, in any case, was dragging him fixedly away from them towards the information terminal against the wall. She knew him far too well: when she stopped in front of the terminal and stepped aside to allow him the honors, she fixed him a stern glare. "Okay, check it out. But no keypad games!"

"...Sophia, I'm hurt. I told you I wanted to look something up for us to spend time together on." But a cursory glance of the hotel's scheduled events showed nothing of even vague interest to either of them.

Overhead, a computer newscaster's warmly androgynous voice serenely droned through the day's stories, in and out of his awareness. "-lost but not forgotten. Seven years ago the people of the Federation Station number seventeen were slaughtered during an attack by the Aldian Empire. Today the families of the deceased staged a memorial in Lambda sector where Station seventeen once orbited, and voiced their hopes for a swift end to the war. Serious question have arisen regarding the Federation government's decision not to cease hostilities in the wake of such tragedies. Federation spokesperson-"

"Fayt, what are you doing now?"

"Trying to find something to do." He frowned. "...I didn't realize that was today."

"What?"

"Station Seventeen."

Sophia shifted beside him, glancing up at the screen. She brought her arms up, clutching herself as if suddenly cold, and looked back down to the floor. "...I didn't want to think about it."

He gave her a sideways glance. "Why? It's not like we're near the front. There's nothing to worry about."

Her lips pursed, a thin line made pale by pressure. "Does that really make a difference to you?"

"Of course it does." He looked up, nudging her, and pointed to another news screen. The scene itself was benign: a pale, sallow politician at a podium, speaking to a room of reporters. The computer voice laid over a more dire story. "-Rezerbian Prime Minister Sergeant Brooklund has issued a statement that such actions interfered with the planet's internal affairs and refused to allow the peacekeeping force to enter their territory. All parties deny the involvement of Klaus-based anti-Federation terrorist group Quark, however-"

"Do you worry about that kind of stuff?" Fayt asked. "The Zeta sector is way closer, and Zeta sector terrorists are more likely to attack Terra or Luna or...I don't know, Hyda. Aldians have never gotten anywhere near Terra in sixty years of war. Klausians have attacked Terran cities like...annually."

"Klausians don't just attack people."

"But Klausian terrorists do," he pointed out. "And Rezerbians. And they're closer, and the Federation lets them travel in our space because we're not actually at war with them-"

Sophia drew her shoulders up and shook her head. She looked away from him, apparently dismissing both him and the news alike. Fayt sighed and shrugged it off. He watched the news for a moment longer, eye caught by the long sweeping image of a Federation battleship that sang to some deep masculine draw to all that shone and shot things. "...They're retrofitting the Aquaelie with new Creation Engines."

"That's nice."

"I'm glad. They were going to retire it."

"Uh-huh."

"I'd love to see it in person. I've never seen a real battleship, just educational sims."

Sophia shifted from foot to foot and sighed. She had turned her head to a screen playing a movie instead, where an unrealistically attractive young couple was taking in the sights of some obscure but beautiful planet with a calculated amount of equally unrealistic comic hijinks. "Are you done yet?"

Fayt shrugged. "Well...Just, I'm checking the weather now. It says here tomorrow's supposed to be clear-"

"Of course it is! This is Hyda."

"Yeah. But around four there might be some squalls. You know, tropical weather." He paused, waiting until he had her attention again. Somehow, Fayt knew he was going to regret his next words. But he wanted to play some more without putting himself in the line of fire-that meant a little bit of sucking up and bowing down. It was inevitable. "So...I figured maybe you and I should just go shopping that afternoon."

Sophia brightened instantly, latching onto his arm again. "Oh, do you mean that? Really? I thought you hated shopping, Fayt!"

He did. He absolutely loathed shopping, especially with Sophia because what it really meant was that she would buy a lot of things and he would carry a lot of bags. But he wasn't going to say that. He was going to smile, and shrug, and humor her – not just because he wanted something out of her good mood, either. The trip would only last so much longer, after all, and Sophia still hadn't bought any souvenirs for her parents back on earth. It was a pity they hadn't been able to come, because Fayt liked uncle Clive quite a bit more than any of his real uncles, but work had come up and in the end only Sophia had been able to. He wondered if she didn't feel a little lonely because of it. "Of course not. How could I hate shopping with you?"

"I make you carry so much though."

"Yeah, well...I'm tough. All those simulations have got me pretty strong, you know."

"Oh...you and your games." She rolled her eyes, and stepped away to cross her arms over her chest. "It always comes back to games. Keep playing them all the time like that you'll be nothing but some brainless musclebound freak."

Fayt considered that for a moment, before nudging her slightly. It was enough of an in for him. "Well...why don't you give it try yourself, Sophia? You might decide it's really fun."

"What?" The suggestion seemed to genuinely startle her, and for a moment Sophia had nothing to say. She looked away again, arms falling slowly to her sides. "But don't you play on those...combat simulators? Don't you have to...fight?" She shook her head, sounding uncertain and maybe even a little bit frightened. "No can do. I- I don't like those kind of games."

"Don't worry. I'll protect you." As if to emphasize this fact he put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed slightly, reassuringly. Hopefully Sophia would not notice that he was using it to guide her towards the nearest simulation chamber, conveniently and blessedly unoccupied.

She looked up at him, brows drawn faintly. "But-"

"I'd never let you do anything dangerous, I promise. C'mon, just try it once Sophia. We can start at an easy level and everything. You can even have a character with symbology, so you can attack at a distance and don't even have to get close to the fighting. Okay?"

"Y-Yeah. Well...It won't...uhm...hurt, will it?" At about that point they came upon the entrance. She looked at it as though it were the maw of some huge, hungry animal waiting to swallow her. "I mean-"

"Of course not." Fairly sure he had won-and much more easily than he had expected-Fayt gave Sophia's shoulder a parting squeeze and released her to enter their IDs onto the panel outside the chamber. "Beginner's level doesn't hurt at all. It just tingles a little. It actually tickles." Which was a slight exaggeration, but it brought the tiny hint of a smile back onto Sophia's face, so that was all right.

"...Okay. I guess I'll give a try. One try."

"Of course." A last touch to the keypad slid the door open easily, letting out a breath of cool stimulant-damp air from the dark blue chamber. "It's easy then. We just go in and it's almost all ready." He was actually rather proud that Sophia went in all on her own, needing only a faint nudge to prompt her. He followed her and the door closed behind them, immersing the pair in indigo darkness for a moment before a soft green glow threw ghostly illumination across the wide, deep-bellied room with its flat projective walls. A computer voice chimed in as well, bland and androgynous and artificially pleasant as the one which announced the news on the information terminals.

"Welcome. You have selected the Battle Simulator. Please set Battle System Parameters."

Sophia fidgeted, and leaned against Fayt's arm. "What does that mean?"

"Ah..." Fayt grimaced faintly. "It means we should start from the beginning. Do you want to look at the instructions?"

"I don't know...Should I?"

"If you want to have any fun. Computer, display instructions."

Nodding at the machine's programmed affirmation, Sophia reached up, dragging her finger along the translucent square of aqua green which appeared before her, lips moving silently as she scanned the simple directions. It was not a complicated system, and she finished it quickly. The computer prompted them with a question- "The user Sophia Esteed is new to this system. Create a new character?"-and after a brief glance to Sophia's puzzled face, Fayt shook his head. She would never play again, whether she enjoyed herself or not, on the simple principle of the matter. There was no point in going through the entire selection process.

"...No. Computer, use pregenerated system characters for Sophia Esteed this session."

"Player one: Fayt Leingod. Character: Sword Master Adonis Klein. User level: AAA. Player two: Sophia Esteed. Character: Flare Witch Cecilia Femina. User level: E. Battlefield: Remote City of Listia. Monster level: E. Setup complete. Continue?"

Again, Sophia fidgeted. "...Monsters?"

"Well you don't want to fight something that looks like another person, do you?" Wide-eyed, she shook her head. "Okay. Computer, we're ready."

"Preparing to commence. This Simulation System may abort a session if it detects that player safety is at risk or-"

"I already know that. Just start the simulation."

The machine adjusted to his terse interruption far more serenely than any living being would have done; dialogue flowing seamlessly from one statement to the next as the air heated with the activation of airborne stimulants and the VR projectors roughened the smooth ground beneath them. "Confirmed. Commencing game-please enjoy your session."

The walls seemed to expand, flowing out into a dimly lit maze of walls, steps, and crumbled buildings. There was a sense of unreality to it all, a strange world unfolding before his very eyes, which Fayt never tired of: a dreamlike allure to the sudden illusory weight of armor about his shoulders and the simulated heft of a sword in his hands-not some featherweight phasegun but a weapon, which made him feel less like a boy and student in the age of complete knowledge and more like a man, a real man of the dark ages. A rough-edged vigilante, perhaps, on some underdeveloped planet in the far reaches of the galaxy where technology had no roots and magic no science; where heroes worked with their hands. If the beginner's level lightened the load more than he was used to anymore, and if it left a harshly digital edge upon the immersive projected environment, he did not let it invade on his fantasy. Let Sophia be comforted by the reminders of technology and its computer-voiced safety net. He, for now, would be Adonis.

From around the jagged corner of a broken wall came a chitinous clicking, and a large creature-their monster, a black stag beetle the size of a german shepherd with huge snapping mandibles and its digital framework showing through in blatant green wireframe chunks as if to prove it harmless. Sophia uttered a brief, strangely inhuman squeal of fear as two more entered, one in flight with its wings buzzing angrily before it landed, at the left and right of them. She clung to Fayt's arm. "Oh my god. They're...they're-!"

"Not real, Sophia. They're not real, they can't hurt you, and I'm here to protect you." It felt good to say the words in a place where it felt like there was something real and genuine to protect her from, even if that something could do her no real harm. Swordsman Adonis Klein, after all, would not have seen projections. He would have seen monstrous creatures with crushing jaws. "It's okay. Now just like the instructions said-how do you fight them? If you fight them, they go away. See, if you let go I can show you. Okay?"

She released his arm gingerly, reluctant to move away but eager to be rid of the monsters and slightly torn between the two impulses. Rather than attacking herself, though, she simply clutched at the long decorative rod the system had provided her character with. She looked small and helpless, in the false world of Listia, and for a moment Fayt felt a pang of guilt at bringing her into this-which was not, after all, her kind of game. She looked small and helpless and for the briefest, most puzzling of moments a deep sense of foreboding washed over him, a horrible despair which weakened his knees and let his readied blade, so long and bright and clean, dip towards the ground.

It passed quickly.

Shaking his head to clear the clinging fog of that horrible sensation-he had played too hard earlier, was all; his mind and muscles were worn-Fayt lifted his sword again and with a shout charged the nearest of the creatures as it approached. The weapon came down with a rush of air to meet the beetle as it rose, rearing to scratch at him with fat jagged legs and and snap with those horrible jaws; crashing into the head with it in an edged hammerblow. The creature was not wounded by the attack; the exoskeleton did not crack or shatter. It simply disappeared into a puff of bright green pixels in one blow, easily felled by such a high-level character. Wheeling as he had long ago learned to do in these simulators, swinging the sword back around with the momentum of his turn, Fayt ran onward to the next as it neared Sophia. She had backed away, and now finally roused herself to swing the wand at it so that a bolt of fire swept out from the tip, but the spell was not aimed and only razed the ground. He struck that down as well, in the same easy single swing of the sword, before turning back to Sophia.

"...Here." Setting his sword in the ground-in the clear artifice of the beginner's level both showed their framing clearly when they joined-Fayt took Sophia's wrist in his hand, moving behind her to steady her as he guided the wand towards the last beetle as it trundled steadily forward.. "You aim at it like this. And then it's easy. Okay?"

"Right." She nodded a little, then looked back over her shoulder to him, uncertain. "...You're...not going to get that one?"

"Nope." Squeezing her slightly where he held on, Fayt grinned. "You are."

"But!" Looking quickly from Fayt to the approaching monster, Sophia was torn once again. She was shaking, and the wand trembled in her hand so that if Fayt had not held it the object would have fallen. The beetle was close enough for Fayt to see the strange artificial green light of its wireframe reflected in the flat glossy eyes when Sophia finally let herself relax into his guidance and held the wand out. It glowed briefly, a flare of orange-red that swept from the grip of her fingers along the false metal shaft before coiling away in a bolt of rolling, chaotic flame and-

The world of Listia, the weight of armor, the heat of flame and feel of the rough ground beneath Fayt's feet vanished abruptly into the sea of indigo again as the floor suddenly trembled, heaving faintly. He braced his feet, jerking his head as if the source of the shaking would be found somewhere, plainly visible and labeled, in the bland dark room of the simulator. "What the-?"

A green light blinked on. The computer voice murmured a weirdly nonthreatening warning. "Level two tremor detected. This system will be temporarily deactivated for your safety. Your data will not be saved. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please play again when the system returns online. Thank you."

That too was well within Fayt's realm of knowledge; what puzzled him was the tremor. A tremor? On Hyda IV? It was a stable world with no tectonic activity. The very concept of an earthquake should have been unheard of; a fantasy relegated to the realm of movies and roleplaying simulations. He opened his mouth to question it aloud but was cut off when the reality reasserted itself in the form of a series of violent and wrenching lurches. Fayt cried out as he lost his footing, grunting faintly as he fell hard on his rear to the pitching floor. Sophia shrieked, falling on top of him and clinging to his shirt with her face buried against her chest. She was looking to him for protection but suddenly, as the soft green light became red and the subtle but insistent burring of an emergency alarm began to play up, he remembered that he really was just a boy; wholly average, high C in his class, who spent too much time on simulated games. The voice of the computer piped up again, no more urgent than before around a programmed warning. "This is an emergency alert. Hyda IV is currently under attack by unidentified spacecraft. All civilians should follow immediate evacuation instructions on the nearest console. I repeat: All civilians-"

Unidentified spacecraft. Under attack by unidentified spacecraft. Fayt's mouth went slightly dry, and quite suddenly he did not feel that he could protect Sophia at all. He shifted, helping both her and himself to their feet. She continued to cling to him as he shook his head. "Com...Computer! What's going on?"

"Remote Station number seven, Hyda III, and Hyda IV are currently under attack by unidentified ships. Remote Station seven has scrambled ships for a counterattack. Statistical data indicates the armed staff of Remote Station seven to be insufficient, and therefore unable to provide evacuation assistance to Hyda IV. All civilians should follow immediate evacuation instructions-"

Aldian. It had to be an attack from the Aldian. What else made sense? Fayt's mind conjured up the image of the twisted wreckage he had glimpsed in an earlier newsbrief; the orbital grave of Federation Station seventeen. He shook it aside hard, and quickly. Wouldn't they be able to tell, if the ships were Aldian? Could it be Quark instead? "What do you mean, unidentified?"

The computer was unfazed by his doubt. "Stand by for video display."

The image materialized on the same faintly tinted blue panel as the instructions: crisp and clear and bright with the sun beginning to drift towards a glorious sunset, the words 'live feed' in white capital letters across the upper corner. Through the thinness of the high atmosphere-here, yes, there were clouds though there had been none early in the day; lazy white wisps of cotton perhaps in preparation for tomorrow's squall-and splitting the white like breakers about its hull came a ship. Not the comfortingly tiered chromic contours of a Federation ship or the squat, practical ships of the Zeta sector but rather something monolithically solid and overwhelming, great and glossily blood-colored against the sky; streamlined in a way that made Fayt think of a deep thing, a mythic whale or leviathan cresting the surface of a strange inverted sea. The light of the sun struck around it in a bold eclipse, a harsh lensing flare of light across the image the rendered the great battleship in sudden and harshly black silhouette. Another flare speared across the image but this one was not natural-a brief lance of light from the sleek hulking mass struck the tiny beachhead in the video, and its tiny buildings so white and clean and beautiful went up in tower of fire; an explosion rendered eerily silent by the soundless feed but whose repercussions were felt in the simulation room as the ground trembled again.

The image froze on a frame of that cloud of smoke and flame, the computer voice continuing pleasantly onward as Fayt shook his head slowly, mouth working in quiet, horrified confusion. "As an emergency measure, all transporters have been directly linked the the Evacuation Terminal. Please commence evacuation by following the established route. I repeat: Please commence evacuation by-"

It was a faint tug at the front of his shirt and a trembling intake of breath that finally broke Fayt's trance. He gasped for air he had not remembered to breathe, and put an arm around Sophia reflexively as she looked up at him again, away from the horror locked on the screen. "Fayt...I-I'm-"

Scared. He swallowed, trying to push down the lump in his throat, and gave her his best smile. It was tight on his face. "Don't worry Sophia. I'll stick with you." But against what? Who could be attacking them? He had seen Aldian battleships, as surely as he had seen those of the Federation on so many news shorts and educational simulators, and that awful red goliath bore them no resemblance. He wondered who they were, why they were there, what reason they could have for attacking a civilian planet in the secure center of Federation territory. He realized he had not seen his parents since that morning. That they were out there, on the beaches. And he wondered with a horrible feeling, strangely hot and not cold as he would have expected, if they were all right. "...Come on. Let's go."

There was a brief moment when he thought he would have to pick Sophia up and carry her; that she had retreated into a safe shell of shock from this, their first proximity to attack in what was considered one of the safest sectors in the galaxy, in this which was supposed to be a place of peace. But she released his shirt, taking his hand instead and nodding once, firmly. "Yeah."

The lounge had already emptied when the door of the simulation chamber opened to discharge them, and with only the dull repetition of a computer warning layered over the muffled sounds of panic somewhere in the halls outside it seemed more haunted than simply abandoned; the fountain a strange monument in a high-tech mausoleum. They did not know the evacuation route and did not bother stopping to check on the flashing information terminal, but crossed the room quickly to the exits. Sophia balked in the entryway, where vacationers could be seen running by in a flurry as unnervingly calm employees with mouths in nervous lines tried to organize them towards the transporters. Fayt stopped, looking back at her, and wondered if she had frozen up after all. "...Sophia. Come on."

"What about your mom and dad?" So they had occurred to her as well. She shook her head, tugging back a bit. "I'm worried about them. Do you think they're okay? Shouldn't we look for them?"

Fayt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wanted to run off through the halls against the crowd and search them out. Rather childishly, he wanted them to be the voice of authority and make things right-a part of him genuinely believed that they could. But he shook his head and pulled her forward. "I don't know where they are. Or if they're okay. But we have to go or we won't be safe. I'm worried about them too...but...right now we need to worry about ourselves."

She stared at him. "You're...I mean, I know that. But-"

"Come on!" With a hard, solid tug he wrenched her forcefully into the press of the crowd, thick with smells of fear and sweat and sunoil. It dragged them along in a tide of humanity through the offwhite halls as the ground rumbled ominously beneath them again, harder and more violently than before; over the babble of the civilians which had already drowned out the computer voice Fayt could vaguely hear the roar of the explosions outside. They were getting closer. He held on tightly to Sophia's hand, palms slippery against each other, in fear of losing her.

They squeezed through the door of the transport room, which once might have taken them to the private beach or a sprawling shopping center or back to their comfortable room. Now people scrambled and crowded to be the first into the twin rows of single-passenger units. A short-haired Tetragene with her hotel hostess' skirt rumpled and hat askew, third eye wide and darting on her forehead, did her best to calm people in a voice raised to a shout by necessity. It was ragged at the edges. "Please, may I have your attention! Due to the state of emergency all transporters have been redirected to a send guests to a special floor, where a large transport unit waits to take you to the Emergency Shelter. After the arrival of all guests at the shelter has been confirmed the transport jammer located in the evacuation facility will be activated, but no sooner! There is enough time and space for everyone to reach the facility safely! Please, evacuate quickly but in an orderly manner!" The ground shook again, this time with the sound of the explosion a hungry roar so close the shatter of glass and shear of twisting metal was nearly audible. No one listened to the pleading hostess.

Fayt suddenly found himself, in the chaotic crowd, with the rounded bar-casing of a transport unit jammed into his gut. He gasped for air against it as he was pushed in, stars briefly bursting before his eyes, before the pressure was released. He grabbed hold of the metal curve to keep from being dragged away again and pulled Sophia forward. "Sophia! Go under the bar. Get in."

"But-"

"I'll come right after." He squeezed her hand. "Promise. Just wait for me on the other side, okay?"

Her eyes were still wide, pupils dilated, breath coming shallow. For a moment she simply stared at him before jerked her head unsteadily down once in a hard nod, and ducked beneath the bar. She did not let go of his hand at first, clutching it tight beneath the thick metal. "You'd better come right after."

He nodded, and pulled his hand away as she vanished in a whirl of brilliant white. The last shimmering particles cleared and he too ducked beneath, not fingering the touchpad this time but slamming his hand down upon it abruptly so that it shot a tingle of pain up his arm. The sensation became cold when the rising light fell down again and he found himself in the eerie silence of a large, flat transport unit; the walls of the room around it scrubbed metal and probably sealed against outside sound. Sophia stood on the lip of the unit, hovering at the downward step out of the way of the streaming clots, a dozen or half-dozen at a time, of other vacationers as they hurried from the room through the large hydraulic door. When it slid open the chaotic babble and surging, buzzing red light of the alarm rushed through from the evacuation hall. The change was disconcerting, and when Sophia ran to him and took his hand he stumbled.

"Fayt!" She was pulling on him, and that may have been the only thing that kept him from falling against the loosely-spaced guard bars of the transport and out onto the cold floor below. He closed his eyes, took a long breath, shook his head. The muscles he had worked so hard earlier now howled for reprieve, and he was forced to ignore them.

"I told you I'd be right behind you. Come on. We're in the way." They stepped down from the platform, hanging close through the opened doors and out into the narrow metal corridor full of people running or staggering past. Fayt wondered how close the explosions had come by this time and shivered, pushing the thought away. It was something, he decided, that he would rather never know.

In the moving crowd something caught his eye; he jerked his head up abruptly, lifting one hand to wave. "Hey! Hey!"

Sophia looked up to him, brows furrowing, and then quickly around. "What-" And then she saw as well. She released his hand to run to them, just two more generic vacationers who had been swept from the beach in the shadow of the great red ship. Throwing her arms around the neck of the woman, her hands knocking away the straw sunhat as they tangled in short black hair and cheek pressing against the olive skin with its fine age lines drawn deep and stark in worry, Sophia began to weep. "Uncle Robert! Aunt Ryoko! We...we didn't-"

"Oh, what a relief. I was so worried. So worried about you both." Ryoko embraced the girl, holding her close and stroking her hair softly; murmuring her motherly reassurances. She looked to her husband briefly, where the man stood with one hand on their son's shoulder.

Robert too wore a look of pure relief; his narrow and deeply-marked face blotchy with the red of sunburn and pallor of overexertion, glasses askew, slightly thinning brown hair disarrayed. In other circumstances, standing there so solemnly in his unbuttoned print shirt and shorts about a small chest and the beginning of a stubborn middle-aged gut, one sandal missing, he would have looked comical. To Fayt, he seemed mercifully authoritative despite it all, and he had to restrain himself from clinging to the man like a very small child. Instead he straightened.

"...I'm glad we found we found you guys, dad. What's going on? Is it Aldian attacking?"

Tilting his head slightly, Robert glanced down to Ryoko and Sophia where they had at last released each other, the girl wiping the trails of tears from her face. He let his hand fall from Fayt's shoulder, lifting it instead to adjust his glasses so that they rest evenly across his nose again. "No, I don't think so. Rather, from the looks of their ships and weapons it's most likely..." He stopped, trailing off into an oddly abrupt, pensive silence as he looked to the side, seeming less to regard the two women than he was studying some facet of the braced wall behind them.

Fayt shifted, slightly uneasy with that hesitation. After a moment, he tried to prompt the rest of the answer. His father did not leave things unsaid. His father did not hide things. And it was impossible that he simple did not know. Robert Leingod knew everything. "Most likely...what?"

"...Never mind." He shook his head, and looked back to Fayt with a faint smile; wry and unassuming and only slightly helpless. It was a boyish and easily forgiven smile which Fayt had carried away in his own genetics. "We'd best just get out of here. There should be a few more partitions before the evacuation transport, so let's go."

"Dad-"

The hand lay upon his shoulder again, and squeezed once, faintly, as he turned Fayt towards the length of the hallway, where others were still fleeing. Robert inclined his head faintly towards Sophia and Ryoko, where the women walked with arms about each other. "Later. Now we have to go."

Hesitating, Fayt nodded slowly after a moment. His father was right of course, and now was not the time. He followed along to the end of the hall, through another set of hydraulic doors with heavy airlock panels set in the side and green ready lights blinking quietly beneath the overwhelming red flash of alarm. Beyond it the running flow of people had slowed to a straggling line, cowed at last not by hotel staff but a collection of stern and uniformed young men, their hair cut short and hands gripped about the dark, long forms of phase rifles. The rigid lines of their bodies as they stood at attention, arms clearly muscled beneath the crisp bends of their sleeves, provided the hall with a sense of overwhelming order and control. The uncompromising professionalism with which they held their guns was comforting. The army of the Pangalactic Federation, despite the computer's denial, was indeed there to protect its people.

One soldier stood just inside the door, and nodded to the tight family group as they entered. "I'm sorry. You'll have to wait here."

Robert frowned slightly. "Is something wrong?"

"No sir. But there's a long line to use the transporter up ahead." He inclined his head towards the snake of humanity beneath the red light. "And the hall is full. So you'll have to wait your turn here."

"Oh, is that all." And then Robert was smiling and nodding again, so that the soldier-who, to his credit, seemed to be doing his damned level best not to-simply had to return the expression. "We'll just wait then. We don't want to cause a-"

Behind them the moment shattered with a resounding explosion; close and hot and chasing down the tight halls. A few scraps of smoking metal debris skidded by their feet, spinning with their momentum. Someone screamed, androgynous as a computer in their fear. The soldier beside them unshouldered his rifle, waving them on as his uniformed fellows ran to take up places guarding the doorway. "Get going! Keep moving forward, now!"

Another shout, anonymous; a curse and a question, a 'how did they come so far' into the howl of the alarm which seemed, suddenly, so much louder. Fayt felt his hand enveloped by his father's, and he reached out blindly to find Sophia's with the other as they began trying to flee down the crowded hall. The ground was shaking again; the crossbraced supports of the hall groaning. Behind them the sound of phase blasts resounded, the sound of the airlock sliding closed agonizingly slow. Ahead of them the crowd was screaming. Behind them, the sound was suddenly echoed with a smell of seared flesh and the heavy thump of something large and fleshy striking the metal ground. It was repeated again. And again. Footsteps sharp and ringing as dropped metal in a rapid pulse across the floor.

Then, thick and slightly accented by his translator laboring to convert an unfamiliar language, came the sound of a voice cold and damp and somehow clutching which called to mind weeds in murky water. Deep and unmodulated; alien, in the worst of ways, for all that the words it spoke were bland and universal. They singled him out, pinned him down, made him shake and break out in a cold sweat even as he felt that strangely hot sense of fear rising up again, not cold as he would have thought. "There they are." A pause. The sound of another body striking the ground, the clatter of another fallen rifle drowned by sounds of fear and running. But he could still hear the clammy, inhuman voice clearly beneath the noise. Fayt felt his feet freeze to the ground, his hand jerked on violently. "Catch them."

He was shoved from behind-"What are you doing? Run for it!"-and in the next moment the man who had shoved him, another soldier it turned out, was fallen back half across Fayt's sandaled feet with his eyes wide and jaw agape, sifting smoke. His skin and uniform showed no signs of damage when Fayt looked down-only the eyes, shriveled and tiny in the sockets; only that horrible sweet stink of seared meat drifting from between his teeth. Fayt had never seen a body before. It moved his frozen muscles admirably.

He jerked back a step with a sound of horror and the acid taste of vomit building up in his throat. Swallowing both, he lurched forward again, over the corpse and so careful not to touch it only to have his flight blocked by the screaming, scrambling crowd. They could not pass through all together. Holding on tightly to each other's hands, they would never get through. Shaking, looking to his father for a solution, he saw only that both of his parents were staring thoughtfully down the hall to the source of the shouting, the thumping, the burned-body stench and sluggish voice like tolling fathoms. He watched his mother shake her head with pursed lips, and the expression struck him as odd-similar to the one she wore when an experiment provided particularly unusual but undesired results.

"Robert, it's-"

"I know." And his father only nodded, with that same slightly vexed expression. "I sort of expected it."

Looking between the two of them, who appeared ready at any minute to begin substituting chemical A or symbol C at a variable conjecture, Fayt shook his head. "Dad? Mom? What-"

He was pushed again. His father had let go of him, his mother had released Sophia, and now Robert pushed them forward into the seething chaos of the crowd. "Run, both of you!"

Wide-eyed, Sophia tried to pull away. Fayt closed his hand more tightly about hers and held on. "Uncle Robert!"

"Get out of here!"

The fear or panic that had not been apparent in their strange, brief exchange was now beginning to show-a desperation in his eyes, in the hoarse edge of his voice. Fayt braced his feet as well he could, refusing to be shoved away. He would not leave his parents, he would not leave them alone when they were afraid, the way they would not have left him. He could not turn himself in the press, but reached back. "Dad, come on! We can all-"

They were pulled away. Somewhere ahead whatever obstacle, whatever door or airlock had blocked the passage was cleared away, and the tide swept forward. Fighting it was useless; even as he struggled to turn and go back he could feel that it was useless. Behind his parents the sound of heavy footsteps snapped alive in that hard, sharp ring of metal. "Dad! Mom!"

Briefly, he caught a glimpse of his father raising his hands, cupping his hands around his mouth to shout above the myriad sounds. He did not carry well. "We'll be at the facility soon! Don't worry about us! I promise!" Another explosion rocked the corridor, a support beam giving way somewhere with the twisted unholy screal of rending metal. It was up ahead, from the sound of the screaming, but the crowd did not slow. The last words of his father behind him were a thin whisper drowning in the siren howl, and they must have been distorted-something strange about them. Something Fayt wanted to question. "You have to protect her, Fayt! No matter what else, you have to protect her!"

Then they were pulled around the corner, and he was gone.