Small metallic blades spun about miniature rotors, slowly gaining momentum until they whirled about their axes faster than the eye could see. Slowly, unsteadily, the drone rose into the air, stabilizing itself using all four propellers and then climbing into the night sky. There it hovered, twenty feet above Blake’s head, correcting itself against the wind using its autopilot routines.

Blake watched the energy flow from one of the three crystals stored in the central fuselage out into the four motors. The distribution looked good. The energy overhead needed for its programming, sensors, and data connection was significant, but within expected parameters. Everything functioned as planned.

The body of the unmanned recon drone, which Blake had decided to call a “flitter” in keeping with his current naming convention, was largely ripped straight from the designs of those personal drones that had been all the rage before his sudden transfer. There was no reason he needed to reinvent the wheel for everything, after all. Besides, he’d been more interested in a different area of the design.

In his study of the strange energy-filled crystals the locals called “cantacrenyx”, Blake had discovered that the crystals seemed to absorb energy at a constant rate that correlated exactly with the crystal’s mass, which also seemed to set the limit to how much could be absorbed. If crystal A was twice the mass of crystal B, it would absorb twice as much energy per second but also would hold twice as much energy in total, meaning that both crystals would go from empty to full in the same amount of time.

As he’d been working these details out, a stray thought had crossed his mind, one which had taken seed and germinated into something closer to a mild obsession: given the constant rate of incoming energy, was it possible to create something that was light enough yet strong enough to fly in perpetuity? After a series of failed prototypes, Blake could finally say with authority that yes, it was indeed possible.

The key laid in the tri-crystal power source. As one crystal powered the device, the other two would recharge. Then, when the crystal providing power ran dry, it would disconnect and another crystal, now newly recharged, would take over. The trick was to find a balance in the energy drain so that one crystal would go from full to empty in a little over half the time it took for it to recharge again. Hitting that balance required finding the perfect ratio of power vs mass. If the motors had to work too hard, the crystal would lose power before its replacement was fully ready. Adding in more crystals or replacing them with larger ones just added to the weight, meaning greater power consumption to offset the gain in reserves.

There was another complication as well. In his old world, the processing and memory units of a device were usually completely separate from the unit’s body. For Blake, the opposite was the case — the processing and memory for a device was its body, and if the body didn’t have enough mass, there wasn’t enough metal to program in all the functionality that he needed. This put a floor on just how light the flitter could be. A perpetually-flying drone that was nothing more than some propellers connected to some crystals did him no good. He needed it to be able to hover in a spot, correct for wind, avoid incoming objects, fly pre-programmed routes, and more. That much functionality meant a significant amount of metal, and that was before one added in the sensors and communication pod.

Yet the window, while small, did exist, and he’d found it. Soon he’d be able to surveil all of Otharia with ease, watching for signs of trouble or resistance. If only he could get his hands on some lighter-than-air gasses... then he’d be able to go really nuts.

He wanted to whoop with joy at his achievement, but such displays were unbecoming of a head of state, or whatever he was these days. “De facto” head of state, he guessed. He had effectively assumed control of the entire country, but nobody who lived there would willingly recognize his leadership. That would change in time, and he didn’t need their recognition at the moment anyway.

To call Otharia an absolute mess was to be kind, but such was to be expected from a country whose entire power structure had been ripped out without warning just two months prior. The populace fell into two main camps. One group had run for the hills, fleeing north for the neighboring country of Eterium. That group seemed mostly led by the low-level members of the Church, such as Voices and others who served in places without easy access to the Church’s main infrastructure. These people plainly believed that he would come for them eventually, and they weren’t entirely wrong. He hadn’t yet decided just what he was going to do about the Voices. He didn’t need some Voice getting ideas and becoming the leader of some rebellion he’d have to crush later. At the same time, there were a lot of them, and hunting down and removing each and every one of them would take time that he didn’t have. Besides, could he really judge all of them by the fervor and conviction of the only Voice he’d ever met? No, he needed more time to consider.

The other side had stayed, refusing to run from an interloper in their lands. Blake had been pleasantly surprised at the number of people who stayed; a good seventy percent remained in the cities, and perhaps even more in the farming villages. Each day they grew bolder, slowly resuming their daily routines and going about their lives. Of course, the slightest hint of his presence would send them scattering to the winds, but when he was not around they were doing their best to get back into their lives. Even in Wroetin people bustled about, buying and selling and the like just down the road from his fortress. Blake couldn’t help but be impressed at their resilience.

Crossing the drone design off of his impossibly long mental todo list, Blake headed down into his fortress and towards the House of Manys. Metal flowed up from the floor and formed around his upper half, complete with a mask to fully cover his body. This was a good time to take care of another item on his list. It was time to say hello to the neighbors.

“Bernards! Agrits!” Blake called as he flung open the door. The sound of many metal objects clattering against the cool stone floor directed his eyes to his left, where he found the two Many handlers on their knees, hurriedly collecting a mess of metal dishes. Bernards Bergmanis and Agrits Ozers were the two low-level clerks who’d happened to be present the day of Blake’s “arrival”, and, luckily for him and the Manys, he’d managed to keep them from running away through a combination of intimidation, threats, and tripling their pay. The extra money didn’t make them any less afraid of him, however. Sometimes he considered removing the mask in an attempt to be more of a person in their eyes, but he always rejected it. He had an image to keep, after all. Only Sam knew what he really looked like, and he planned to keep it that way.

“Bernards,” he repeated, looking at the closer of the two men.

“Y-yes my lord?” the portly, balding man stammered

“Are these all the Manys we have?” he asked, looking around the amphitheater filled with mumbling, drooling men and women of all ages.

“M-my lord?”

“These people, they all... connect, I guess is the word, to others in Otharia?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“Do we not have anybody who communicates with other countries?”

“Other...” The man stared at Blake in puzzlement.

“There... there is one,” came Agrits’s voice from the floor. “The Silent One.”

“The Silent-” Bernards’s face went pale and he began to panic. “Oh no, I forgot all about him! Has he been fed?!”

“Yeah... I’ve been taking care of him,” Agrits replied.

“Oh, thank Othar...” wheezed his relieved partner.

“You forgot a person?” Blake asked in utter bewilderment. Did he need to find more competent handlers?

Bernards began to panic and stammer a reply but Agrits chimed in again. Blake couldn’t recall him ever speaking so much before.

“Forgetting is... easy. He is different. Follow me.”

Blake followed the two as they led him out of the chamber, Bernards stammering out an explanation. The Silent One was a Many from Eterium who had been around longer than either of them had worked as a Many handler. It was thought that he had been there longer than either of the two had even been alive. Nobody knew his name, or his age. He barely ate, barely moved, barely seemed to even breathe, and as far as anybody there could recall never once spoke in the entire time he’d been there.

He’d also never once been used. Blake found this fact very concerning. The Silent One served as the link between the previous regime and that of Otharia’s only direct neighbor, Eterium, which it shared a border with in the northwest. The idea that the two governments had never once bothered to communicate seemed like a very bad sign.

“Do we even know if the person he’s connected with is still alive?” Blake wondered.

“You don’t know?” Bernards asked. “When one in a set of Manys dies, the whole set dies.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes. It seems very painful, too. A shame.”

The trio turned a final corner and entered into a small room, where they found a thin old man lying on a straw mattress. Judging by the wrinkles, Blake guessed the man to be somewhere between eighty and ninety years old, the oldest person he’d ever seen in this world. The two handlers roused the man from his stupor and, after much coaxing, managed to start up a transmission before leaving the room.

Blake stood, fully clad in metal, and watched as the Silent One’s projection took form, revealing a dimly-lit circular room. Within that room, Blake thought he saw other figures resting in alcoves along the walls. In the center sat a rather rotund middle-aged woman, currently facing away from his viewpoint. He waited a few moments, but the woman did not turn. He coughed. Nothing.

“Hey.” Nothing.

“OLD FAT LADY!” Blake smiled as she twitched. That got her.

The woman began looking around for the source of the sound. She turned her head back and forth, checking all of the room except for where his viewpoint sat. Finally, after several moments, she turned fully around and stepped back in shock, her eye going wide at the image of a armored form staring back at her from a Many that had never once been used.

“I’d like to speak with your boss,” Blake stated.

The woman sprinted out of view, and Blake heard some indistinct yelling off in the distance. Nobody entered the room for minutes, as Blake settled in to wait. Finally, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and the lady returned with another woman dressed in ornate, expensive looking robes. She strolled in unhurriedly, as if she owned the place, her bearing lending her an air of competence and confidence that left no doubt who was in charge.

“Finally decided to show yourself, I see,” the new woman said to him as she shooed the attendant away with her hand.

“Moving is hard,” Blake replied. “So much to unpack. Really sucks up your time.”

The woman paused, studying him, building a first impression. Blake simply stared back, unmoving, waiting for her to respond. Having apparently finished her initial judgment, she took several steps towards him, giving Blake a clear view of her intelligent blue eyes.

“I am Amatza Motrico, Seventh Seat of the Council, Minister of External Affairs. You are the one who calls himself ‘Ferros’, are you not?”

“The one and only.”

“You’ve caused quite the commotion, I must say, and given me in particular a very large headache.”

“I’m not one for half-measures.”

“No? How strange, because conquering a country without securing its borders seems like quite a half-measure to me.” She leveled a stern gaze at him through the projection.

“That was a test,” Blake lied. “A test you failed, I might add.” Blake had never actually intended to let thirty percent of Otharia make a beeline for the northern border; he just didn’t have the resources to stop it just yet. He wasn’t going to admit that to anybody, though, especially not one of the rulers of a foreign nation. And, he told himself, there was some truth to his words. He’d learned something vital about Eterium’s national character from how they kept rounding the refugees up and sending them back into Otharia.

“You murdered the entire Otharian government, but you presume to lecture us on morality?” Minister Motrico scoffed. “The Republic of Eterium is not a charity. We have no reason to take in thousands of jingoistic peasants who would be nothing more than a drain on our reserves! If you contacted us for something other than sanctimonious rebukes, I suggest you get to the point. I have a very tight schedule.”

“I need you to do something for me.”

Amatza laughed. “First you preach, then you ask for favors?”

“Don’t think of this as a favor, think of it as an investment.”

“Go on.”

“This is the only Many I have that communicates with another government. I request that you contact the other nations and get them to each send me a Many so I can talk with their governments.”

“And how much are you willing to pay for this service?”

“I’m not an idiot. You’ll do it for free.”

“We Eterians rarely do anything for free,” the Minister stated. “It’s something we’re quite proud of.”

“As I said, this is an investment. Looking at a map recently, I couldn’t help but think of all the taxes and fees you must rake in from all that commerce traveling through your lands. Once I establish communications, I can set up trade with those countries, and you as well of course. That just means revenue streams, and more money for you.”

Motrico laughed. “Otharia has nothing of value. Your wood is soft and weak. You lack metals and precious stones. Your products are sub par, and you don’t even have enough food to feed your own, let alone export any. If there was anything worth trading for in Otharia, we would have conquered it centuries ago. What do you think you have that anybody else would desire?”

“Sorry, state secret.”

“Oh?” She chuckled again. “Very well. I will do as you request. I look forward to seeing what you come up with, Ferros of Otharia. Now, I must be going. The Council will want to hear from me. Until next time.”

Without another word, the projection cut off and the Silent One slumped over. Bernards came in and settled the old man while Blake left the room and headed back to the main fortress. The former engineer let out a breath of relief. Representing a country on the international stage was tough, but he felt like he hadn’t made a total ass of himself. He’d take that for now.

The fortress was quiet save for the sound of his metal boots echoing off the walls with every step. He’d created it using all the metal lying underneath the city, drawing it all up from the depths of the earth on the day of his coup. There had actually been more metal than he’d expected, so he’d added a series of extra features to it at the last minute, including an observation tower which had so far gone unused. Still, it looked cool and mighty, which was half the point. He made a mental note to go up it later that night as he glanced up and noticed his flitter hovering over the tower, right where he’d left it earlier.

For now, though, he headed down a hallway and made his way towards the center of the structure, towards a different destination. Soon he arrived at a dead end. Suddenly, the metal in front of him melted and flowed off to the side, revealing a large chamber. Blake walked in and the metal reformed behind him, as if nothing had changed. Here, deep inside the heart of his new home, were the two most important rooms of all — his bedroom and the nerve center.

Blake strode past his sparsely furnished bedroom and entered the nerve center. The large room was even emptier than his bedroom. In fact, it only contained one thing: a large rectangular box the size of a bus, made out of nothing but solid tucrenyx all the way through, connected to a series of large cantacrenyx crystals, each the size of Blake’s head. His masterpiece. His server.

From the moment he’d decided to take his present course of action, Blake knew that he’d never be able to accomplish his goals on his own. No matter how powerful he made himself, he could still only be in one place at a time. So he’d decided to create some help. After finding a suitable location a good distance from the canyon where he’d met Samanta, he’d settled down and devoted himself almost entirely to researching everything he could think of involving crystals, metal, and anything else that would further his goals of a robot army.

Between his discoveries concerning motion and programmable logic, he’d already had half the puzzle solved. All that had remained was wireless communication and input, which he’d assumed would come just as easily. How wrong he’d been. Figuring out how to create an image sensor had taken eleven real-time days, which in Blake’s Hyper Mode was the equivalent of eighteen years of non-stop study and experimentation. There secret turned out to be interspersing other metal atoms into crystal tucrenyx channels and detecting how their interference with the flow changed as photons struck, something he’d chanced upon almost by accident. That ended up being the easy one.

Initially, Blake had assumed that creating a means of long-distance wireless communication would be fairly simple. All he had to do was create an alternating current of energy moving through some crystal tucrenyx, generating radio waves much like how wireless signals were generated in his old world. The only problem was that none of that worked whatsoever. The energy only traveled in one direction, so alternating current was out the window, and no amount of energy flow seemed to cause any light emission that he could detect.

After more than eight days, or thirteen internal years, of banging his metaphorical head against a metaphorical wall, Blake had frustratedly thrown the lump of metal he’d been studying into a nearby cave wall and marched out to go hunt something. Upon his return, he’d picked up the abused lump and noticed that the energy of the circuit, which had been active, was lower than it should have been. A thorough inspection revealed that one of the circuits had been broken by the collision with the wall, though just barely. A minuscule gap separated in the crystalline line. Strangely, the circuit was still operating, the energy jumping the minuscule gap. A closer look revealed that energy was still circulating, but the amount that managed to survive the jump was slightly less than what began the jump.

Where was this energy going? Was it being converted to light? Was it rejoining whatever place the cantacrenyx crystals drew the energy from? Or was it simply that his powers didn’t let him see the energy unless it was in the crystals or the metal? As much as he hated to admit it, Blake’s knowledge of the physics involved in anything he did was woefully lacking. Where did the energy come from? Why did the cantacrenyx crystals absorb it? What was special about tucrenyx that gave it such strange properties? All were crucial questions that he had no answers for.

Still, the energy was going somewhere, and Blake had a hunch that it might be the key to solving his problem. But even if that were the case, how to detect it? The question plagued him, especially since he couldn’t be sure he was even heading down the correct path.

His hunch had been correct, though it took five days for him to realize it, and to discover he’d been hampering his own efforts the entire time. The energy being released, especially if done in sudden bursts, created a pulse of some sort that rippled outward at incredible speeds, traveling across some sort of plane that he could not fully comprehend. Those bursts could be detected hundreds of miles away, but to do so, Blake needed to do something he always tried to avoid — he needed to expose crystalline tucrenyx to the elements. Burying his circuits below the surface of the metal was something he’d started doing ever since he first created his arm. It kept the more fragile circuitry protected. But it seemed that it also blocked or absorbed ambient energy bursts, meaning he’d basically been taking pictures with the lens cap on the entire time. Now that he’d realized his folly, Blake created a networking node featuring a gap transmitter and an exposed crystalline receiver, surrounding them with a small cage of thin metal to provide a slight bit of protection while not dampening the broadcast or reception of signals.

Once he’d figured out all the technologies required for his aims, he still needed to actually develop a logic structure complex enough to meet his needs. That had taken another four days, or over six and a half years internally, to accomplish. He’d poured himself into writing the hundreds of thousands of microscopic lines required for his goals, until the patterns became so much a part of him that they became a language that he felt like he could read and follow like a book.

Twenty-eight days, in total. Forty-six internal years of thinking, experimenting, and discovering. A lifetime of work. Blake sure felt older by the end of it, he could not deny, but he’d succeeded in the end. That was what mattered.

The end result of his efforts was a small, 8-inch little skitter he’d called Alpha, but he’d built on that success to create an entire legion of skitters, an army able and willing to do his bidding. Skitters were, for the most part, built with the same general design goal: a multi-purpose quadrupedal mobile device capable of carrying out a wide variety of tasks. They all carried with them a suite of tools, as well as several weapons for self-protection. Some he’d altered for specific purposes as well. They came in several sizes, from the two foot tall scout drones to several fifteen foot tall behemoths that existed entirely for combat, but the vast majority came in the standard four and a half foot high, six foot wide variety.

He couldn’t help but be immensely proud of his creations. They’d performed admirably during his initial conquest, and continued to fulfill their duties without issues. It helped that the local populace was deathly afraid of them, he had to admit. While most of Otharia was unwilling to leave their lives to escape him on a macro level, they still ran away from his skitters whenever one passed by.

Over two thousands skitters now roamed the lands of Otharia, most of them concentrated in the cities to mirror the population distribution. They monitored the country, responding to situations as needed. Blake couldn’t deny that most of those situations involved guerrilla attacks on the skitters themselves, but that would change soon. With his flitters filling the skies, the small rebel group that had popped up would no longer have anywhere to run.

None of this would be possible without the server. It coordinated all his units through its connection to a series of large antennas atop the fortress, keeping them on task and adjusting their deployments to handle problems that might arise. With his energy sight, he could see the nodes buzzing with activity, sending messages through the antennas to a series of boosters placed around the country which then relayed the packets to the actual robots. The server itself had taken multiple days of non-stop effort to program. Without the years of experience programming Alpha and its successors, Blake figured it would have taken him several real-time weeks, or perhaps even a full month, to create such a wondrous device.

There was just one tiny, little, insignificant problem — operating the thing was a bitch. Blake needed a monitor, and he needed it in the worst way. As it was now, he had to delve into Hyper Mode and adjust connections manually in order to make changes. It took significant time to check and recheck his changes to make sure nothing unexpected popped up, which was a gigantic pain in the ass. Blake’s todo list was a mile long, but figuring out how to make a proper monitor was way up at the top. He’d make it huge, covering the entire wall with its luminous glory. Hell, he’d do all the walls! Why not go all the way?

He’d figured out a way to create the light he wanted, using an inversion of the same design used to create the light sensors on his robots, exciting various metals to give off a visible light, but the response time was terrible. It took nearly fifteen seconds for one of his designs to give off enough light to be visible during the day. They could light a room, as evidenced by the two lighting the server room itself, but that was about it. There were few other uses for them as they were... except...

A stray thought crossed his mind, and he smiled as an idea for another worthwhile use took shape. It was a simple idea, one so easily accomplished that he couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it before. Striding quickly out of his room, Blake made his way to the only other room even in the running for the most important room in the fortress: his workshop. Once there, Blake went to work, creating a series of long, thin poles about twelve feet long using crystals and tucrenyx he’d pulled up from the earth during his conquest of the country. The absolute abundance of both the crystals and metal strewn about the nation made Blake wonder why nobody else had discovered the secrets of this technology since whatever ancient civilization had lived there millennia ago. With hundreds of years to tinker with them, one would have imagined somebody would have figured something out before he’d shown up.

The new devices were incredibly simple, to the point where creating several hundred of them only took several minutes. With a thought, Blake activated the networking module in his robotic legs, and within seconds several skitters marched in through a large entrance and took the poles away. He chuckled at the thought of the masses running in fear as the skitters bustled about the city, deploying his latest creations.

Then the pain returned and chased any pleasant thoughts from his mind. Blake doubled over as agony radiated out from his spine. Minute after torturous minutes passed but the torment continued unabated. Blake panted and gasped as he willed himself to get through it, his body covered in sweat, his limbs trembling, his breath ragged. It would stop eventually, he knew; it always did. He just needed to make it through.

Finally, after what felt like an hour but was probably only several minutes, the torture abated and Blake picked himself back up. These episodes were an inescapable part of his life now. All it took was a little tweak or twist or bend of the spine in the wrong way to trigger one; just a single moment of carelessness like just before was enough.

The sudden bouts of pain were just the cherry on top of the sundae that was all the standard issues paralyzed people dealt with on a daily basis. He’d been forced to create multiple devices to handle simple tasks and bodily functions that he once took for granted. The things he had to do just to keep from urinating all over himself every day... it was better not to think about it.

It was possible that some adjustment to his “pants”, as he called them, would be able to mitigate whatever brought about this pain. The robotic powered armor already supported his entire lower body, moving his lost lower half now that it could no longer move itself. He controlled it much in the same way that he worked his left arm. It had taken many days, but he’d gotten to the point where his movements were on par with a normal person’s for simple activities like walking.

Part of the issue was that Blake was an engineer, not a doctor. He knew little beyond the general knowledge of an American, plus a few things that he’d picked up randomly from WebMD and Wikipedia. None of that could help him now. If there was a way to alter the design of his pants to stop these surprise attacks, he didn’t know it, and he really wished he did. Blake was already guaranteed to have two episodes a day, one when putting on his pants after waking up, another when taking them off again at night, but those were predictable and happened when he was alone. He needed those. He needed the pain and rage to drive him, keep him going. But he couldn’t have more of them popping up in the middle of the day, not when somebody might see. No one could know of his weakness, especially not Sam.

Samanta Zemzaris, the girl who had taken so much from him in a single stroke, had not come out of her room for the past three days. He'd made sure to get some food to her, but that was all he'd done so far. He'd needed time away, time to figure out a way to fix what he’d done.

Three days ago, just minutes after a particularly painful episode that had left him gasping on the floor for half an hour, Blake had waited for her in the classroom, ready to teach. She'd been late. It had been the latest from her in a series of small rebellions. He understood on one level. She was pushing against her boundaries, like any kid her age. But he'd done a lot for her, and her complete lack of gratitude rubbed him raw. He'd taken her in now that her family was dead, providing her food, shelter, and protection even after her betrayal. Sure, he had several selfish reasons for doing so, but the fact remained that he'd been taking care of her when she'd otherwise have been all alone. Now he was doing his best to impart the truth to her, to give her the gift of knowledge. He was helping her, but she persisted in her petty defiances.

The attack had already set his nerves on edge, and her tardiness had only exacerbated his foul mood. This, combined with her combative, resentful attitude after she'd arrived, had been enough to puncture his pain-weakened self control and he'd... lost himself. She'd already fled the room before he'd realized all that he'd said, and there was no way to put the genie back in its bottle after that.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to try. Blake believed in his message. He just needed to find the right way to say it, and now, after three days of contemplation, he felt he'd finally found the answer. He just needed to wait until his skitters were finished installing the new devices he’d just created.

The door was closed, as expected. Blake wondered if giving her a private bathroom was a bad idea, since that meant she never had a reason to leave. He knocked, and heard some rustling on the other side, but nobody answered. He knocked again.

“I’m coming in in five seconds,” he called through the door when Samanta still refused to answer. Five seconds later the door slid into the wall and Blake stepped into to find the doleful eyes of his charge gazing back at him from her bed, her body concealed in a mass of blankets and sheets. She’d been crying, he realized as he stared into those mournful orbs. Her eyes were puffy and red, and underlined by strong, black bags. He sighed at the girl’s pathetic appearance. “We have to talk. Get yourself dressed and come out.”

The door shut behind him as he stepped back out into the hallway. After about thirty seconds, Blake heard movement in the other chamber, and soon the door opened again and Sam stumbled out. She kept her gaze lowered, avoiding eye contact, and didn’t speak.

“Follow me,” he said as he strode off down the hallway. The girl followed. Neither of them spoke as they walked, the fortress filled with only the sounds of two people’s steps, each lost in their own little world. Finally Blake stopped at a strange doorway with a large button beside it. He pressed the button and the door opened to reveal an elevator. Samanta followed as he stepped inside and the door closed behind them.

When they stepped back out, they were hundreds of feet higher, at the top of the observation tower. A cool breeze blew through the thick chain link fence that sealed the entire platform to prevent any accidents. Blake found the sensation of the wind through his hair refreshing after the long, tiring day. He’d worked hard all day and barely accomplished anything that needed to get done, as usual. He really needed to get some help, set up a cabinet of sorts. Something to handle the day-to-day matters so that he could focus on the more important things. The problem lay in finding the right person or people. He’d been looking for somebody suitable for a while, but had yet to find anybody he felt qualified for the position. That was a matter for later, however.

“It’s a nice view, isn’t it?” he asked the mute girl beside him. She stared out at the city below, its buildings painted red by the last vestiges of the setting sun peeking over the horizon. Her face remained expressionless, but he could see in her eyes that the view was getting through to her. “I made this place for those times when you need to get away from it all and regain your perspective.”

Samanta didn’t respond, simply walking forward and looking down at the landscape.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Blake continued. “I realized recently that I’ve never actually explained to you why everything I’m doing is so important. Why any of it matters. Why you should care.

“When I first... arrived... here, I ran across this village of farmers. They weren’t doing so great. Some stampede or something had swept through their farmland and ruined weeks of their work, so every single person was out there hacking away at the dirt desperately with these crude tools even as it was getting dark. I’m not a farmer, but it was obvious even to me that they weren’t going to make it. Everybody was starving, people were fainting... It was a disaster. Their lives were in shambles and it was only going to get worse.

“These people are living their lives trying to get the most that they can out of every single hour of every single day. They have to if they want to survive. And that’s the problem. You can’t succeed if you have to be perfect at all times. Life won’t let you. But if those farmers had tractors, tillers, and automatic planters, they wouldn’t be up against the wall like that. They’d have food stored up. Their houses wouldn’t be crappy huts that look like they’d fall down to a gentle breeze. What state would the village have been in if half the villagers could devote their lives to something other than farming?

“That’s why technology is so great. It’s all about pushing away the boundaries life tries to hold you to. Time, energy, even fear. When I was child, I hated the dark. It terrified me. I was sure that there were monsters, and bad guys, and evil things of all types lurking in those shadows, waiting for the right time to strike. But I learned that you don’t have to fear the shadows. You just have to banish them.

“Here, take this,” Blake said, holding out a small, thin box with a large button on it. A switch. “Push the button.”

Samanta took the device from his outstretched hand and stared at it, her hands going nowhere near the button on top. She looked back and forth between the object in her hands and Blake, as if asking why he would make her push it.

“Go ahead. I want you to be the one to do it,” he cajoled her. “Nothing bad is going to happen, I promise.”

Her arms shook as she slowly placed her right hand on the button. Blake saw thoughts warring with each other inside her head as her hand remained frozen atop the button. Finally, after several moments of quiet, her hand depressed the button and a soft click could be heard in the stillness. The girl flinched, but nothing happened. At least not for the first few seconds.

Then Samanta gasped, the switch dropping from her hand with a clatter. She stepped up to the fence and grabbed it with both hands, her eyes wide with surprise as hundreds of long, thin twelve foot tall poles all around the city began to glow. His skitters had done their job well, installing them all at intersections and areas of interest after he'd finished creating them earlier that day. Blake grinned as thousands of people all around the city wandered out of their homes and into the streets to gape at his new streetlights. The city shone as a second day dawned just as the first had set.

"Let's do it. You and me, Sam. Let's make a world where people don't need to fear the darkness anymore." The girl remained silent, but within her eyes Blake witnessed a hint of something he'd never seen in her before: doubt. It was a start.