“It shouldn’t have been you to do it. I pnned to do it myself.”

  “Then you should have gotten there faster.” Gelmidas yawned condescendingly.

  He had spent the past hour arguing with Davon and had grown quite tired of it.

  Nadeden was silently sitting with them, tracing the scars on her wrists with her fingertips.

  “We all should have, Gerry. We shouldn’t have come to the Pza first. We should have done a lot of things, but that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t have killed him.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Davon? Let Nadeden die? Let Magnus open the container and use the heads!” Gelmidas raised his voice, his words shattering Davon and bellowing within the walls of the Emperor’s office. “Stop trying to protect and control me like I’m some sick child for one instant, and actually listen to me, Davon!”

  Davon lowered his eyes and voice, “Gerry,” he pleaded.

  “Don’t you, Gerry, me!” He continued to shout just as Magnus did hours earlier, “I’ve heard the others call me their little mascot! Their special cheerleader who gets left off the posters. I’m only nice because it makes things easier for me, y’know! Do you think I would have gotten through boot camp or the academy if I hadn’t bothered to actually be kind? You could never bother, though, could you?”

  Gelmidas lunged across the office toward Davon. “Could you?” He challenged him.

  Nadeden leaned up from her seat, preparing to step in between the pair.

  Gelmidas stepped backward before she had to do so.

  “I know how you feel about me, Davon. How you think you feel, at least. You only clung to me because I was all you had and because I was emotional and easy to cling to. I won’t make the mistake of being like that ever again. I have always held nothing but pity for you. I thought I was doing you a kindness by being your friend. I cared about you, sure, but I could never love someone like you. Now get out of my sight.”

  Davon could do nothing but stand still and let tears wet his face as his heart sank into his baffled stomach.

  It was a full minute before he hung his head and exited the room, being as quiet and as small as he could.

  Gelmidas pced his hands on the desk, exhaling a deep sigh that failed to express the sheer catharsis he felt at finally saying those words. “Are you going to tell me that I was too harsh?”

  Nadeden rubbed her eyes. “No. In fact, you probably should have done it sooner.”

  She spread herself out in the chair, sinking into it. “I came here at dawn to kill Magnus after he invited me, so no one else would have to.”

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out that way.”

  “No, Gerry, I’m the one who should be sorry. I know you never killed anyone before, and I just-”

  Gelmidas kneeled down, squeezing Nadeden’s hands, cutting off her sentence with an easy comfort. “I had to help you, my lovely Nadeden, besides,” he said, pcing his palm gently on her stomach. “We have bigger concerns.”

  Nadeden pushed his hand aside. “I’m not concerned about them, Gerry.”

  Gelmidas gazed into Nadeden’s warm eyes. “You’re sure? There are medicines you can take that would-”

  Nadeden wanted to ugh at the thought, she smiled instead. “I thought about it, but this is my decision. I want to bring something good into this universe. I want our child to be safe and live a life away from all this madness.”

  The couple embraced each other in a pin but meaningful kiss.

  “So now what, Emperor?” Nadeden joked.

  Gelmidas chuckled, “Now we win the war.”

  Republic and Division pnets don’t have names.

  It is oddly one of the few commonalities that the two governments share.

  With so many pnets being overtaken by the war, humans found it easier to bel enemy-occupied pnets by the name of the enemy.

  Soon, these names became badges of pride for the humans living on them. They were proud to be Division or Republic.

  As for the other species, the ones who have had their lives trampled on by war, they are simply grateful to still be alive.

  Nadeden finds herself in a simir situation as Smith guides her through the bustling streets overflowing with people of all types, eager to get anywhere that isn’t here.

  Street vendors and w enforcement anxiously guard the entry and exit ways, lying in wait for greedy customers or thieving tourists.

  Using her pain and feigned disability as cover, Nadeden hunches her back to hide beneath the sea of the crowd.

  “Do you know where I can find some Medical treatment?” Smith nervously asks several people in the swirling mass of the street at random intervals. He follows Nadeden’s careful instructions to avoid asking any humans for help. They may recognize her if they get too close.

  The question is the only thing Smith has been able to say since the pair left the Spaceport with the cargo hold of the dead symbiotic ship unlocked. Nadeden figured that the individuals they stole the ship from would be more concerned with finding clothing than reporting them. Smith had noted Nadeden’s cautious yet shocked demeanor, but hadn’t said anything about it.

  He honestly felt that, after the events on the ship that he should keep Nadeden at an even further distance than he had her at before.

  Still, despite all this, he continues to ask nonhumans where he can find medical treatment for her.

  It’s the right thing to do. He tells himself, I owe Nadeden my life, no matter how much she scares me.

  The Mystic can’t be right. They were wrong about only Machinist lives being precious.

  All life is, I don’t care if they love me, hate me, or want me dead.

  I just need to make sure no one else dies.

  The horror of being noticed and perceived fills Smith as he’s ignored and pushed aside by Martians, Squideels, and Fluoredons, until finally meeting a floating Lungoza, “Do you know where I can find some Medical treatment?” Smith asks, resisting making eye contact with the radiant eye in the Lungoza’s transparent spherical body, “Treatment?”

  “Uh,” Smith stutters, shuddering with embarrassment.

  He’s still so weary of trusting others. Nadeden thinks I don’t bme him.

  Smith gulps, wrapping an arm around Nadeden, whose agony is increasing with every movement.

  “Yes, for my uh, Mother, my blind Mother.”

  The Lungoza computes for a moment. Their eye shifts into a line that traces along their body, lighting the organs and tentacles hidden within. Smith gets ready to run, unsure if the Lungoza is preparing an attack or not, only for his legs to shake under his weight. Nadeden supports him, pcing her hand on his shoulder.

  The action pulls at her muscles with the stabbing sensation of having skin peeled.

  The Lungoza’s eye returns to its natural state. “Sure, the hospital is on the other side of town. I just came from there. It’s just three Kiloclicks away. Take a right at the square and you’ll see a tower with a white cross. You can’t miss it, but you’ll have to go through a pretty big crowd; there’s some kind of event going down in the square today.”

  Smith gives a strained smile. “Thanks.”

  He begins to leave with Nadeden before the Lungoza spins around in the air, “Wait!”

  Nadeden clenches a fist, pulling Smith back to face the Lungoza. Smith shuts his eyes in fear of the inevitable violent confrontation.

  “They serve humans, too, but you’ll have to ask for Dr. Redlum by name; she’s the only human doctor on staff besides a few nurses and surgeons. I have a human friend who was treated by her once.”

  “Oh, thank you.” Smith gasps, opening his eyes in surprise.

  “You’re welcome!” Sings the Lungoza, cheerfully floating away.

  The pair follow the Lungoza’s directions.

  They push past the end of the street, narrowly avoiding suspicion from w enforcement but receiving many calls from the vendors preaching the quality of their wares.

  Stepping into the next block, Smith is left to wonder why the Lungoza chose to aid them, and more interestingly, why Nadeden wanted him to even ask for directions in the first pce. “Couldn’t you have just found the way yourself?”

  “Huh?” Nadeden groans, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere this crowded and in a state like this, asking was the best option.” She mumbles in pain and annoyance.

  Do I really have to expin myself to him? Nadeden questions. Is that how much he distrusts me now?

  She fully understands why he wouldn’t trust her.

  She has brought him nothing but pain after all.

  “Just like Adamus.” The imagined voice of Gerry bites at her ears even in this roar of noise.

  “My lovely Nadeden, why can’t you understand that Smith isn’t your chance to atone for the mistake of Adamus? He isn’t your son. You owe him nothing, yet you’ve begun to buy into his sanctimony just because you saved his life. Why, Nadeden? Do you think just helping one person suddenly makes good on everything you’ve ever done? Why can’t you just hurry up and succumb to the wounds Davon inflicted on you? You’re no different from him after all.”

  She reminds herself that the thoughts are her own and clutches Smith tighter, letting herself be guided by his sight in her blinded disguise.

  “Excuse me, spare some food?”

  “Do you have any food?”

  “Food or stone coins?”

  “Get off the street, you dirty beggars!” A Republic w officer shouts, knocking down a gathering of ragged fluoredons with a broad wooden shield. The action disrupts the crowd and slows its movement to a crawl.

  The past two Kiloclicks have been just that, a crawl.

  Nadeden has kept herself as hidden as possible, but the number of Republic officers keeps increasing as they near the square, and the number of those in the crowd is decreasing. Soon, the street turns from being full of hurriedly moving passerbys clumped together like bags of sand into dispced homeless urchins who hide at the march of Republic boots.

  Although Smith pays little attention to these surroundings, Nadeden can hear the silence and sense the danger.

  “Alleyway.” She whispers, pulling Smith to the side, with quite some resistance on his end.

  The pair slide in between the back of a coffee house and a china shop.

  “We’re close. Why did we stop?”

  “Something doesn’t feel right.” Nadeden lifts her bandana slightly to peer across both sides of the alley. “How many officers were out there?”

  “Officers?”

  Nadeden sighs. Her patience, along with her body, is exhausted.

  “Yes, officers, Smith, in the red and white uniforms like the one the supervisor at the spaceport had, except a little different.”

  “I wasn’t counting.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t know I should have been, there were so many.”

  Nadeden’s heart drops at Smith’s words, and the sound of boots trampling into the alley, “All humans entering the town square need to show identifica-” The officer locks eyes with Nadeden’s scorched eyelid. A sudden, violent fear and disbelief ignite in the officer as they slowly reach for their weapon.

  “You don’t want to do that.” Nadeden growls, using the aching in her throat to her advantage. Although she instantly wishes she hadn’t.

  The officer runs away with only the thoughts of survival and gaining reinforcements on their mind. Nadeden moves the bandana back down to cover her face, cursing at her mistake and gripping Smith’s arm, “Move.” She demands pulling him across the alley and limping into the town square.

  Officers are positioned at each end of the square, working to conceal the small swarm of their comrades, who frantically move gray bundles of fabric as rge as themselves.

  “They said there was an event today,” Smith whispers to Nadeden.

  She lowers both of them into the shadows of a caravan of Martians who do not dare gnce at anything in the square.

  An officer tosses a match onto stacks of firewood with what appear to be signs and fgs atop it.

  The fire bzes and spreads onto the gray bundles lined around it like a grand bonfire.

  A marbled statue of Vanessa Soryu sits in the center of the square, cape and sword in hand.

  “Don’t look,” Nadeden mutters, wrestling Smith’s head to face forward. Smith’s eyes lower instead and see the oceans of dried red on the pavement.

  “Don’t look,” Nadeden repeats with a cough, ready to colpse now.

  The pair drift apart from the Martians, exiting the square. Smith chooses to look back just once.

  "There will be no Union"

  "There will be no Marriage"

  "There will be no Peace"

  "Better dead than Republic"

  The protesters' signs and fgs all burn with their body bags.

  “I warned you,” Nadeden groans, her voice grows as heavy as her breath as she slips into unconsciousness once more.