25.

As our ride softly growled through the deserted Darrington streets, we passed by Old School Park, the burned-out husk of my Lift, and Mr. Silver's house. I swallowed hard as I saw the digital ghost of the old man waving slowly as we passed him by.

"What do you see around us right now?" I asked Philip.

"Doesn't look like anything to me," he replied. There was a trace of a smile as he looked over at me. I didn't get the joke, but I smiled back, anyway.

26.

The trail up the front of Whitehorse was not an easy one, to say the least. Years of disuse and no maintenance had nearly erased the path just a couple hundred yards from the base of the intimidating mountain. It was one of the few landmarks surrounding town that retained its old growth. As beautiful as it was, I cursed the trees as I tripped over the severed limb of a nearby pine and nearly tumbled backward down a sharp rise. Quicker than I could clearly see, Phil holstered his hand cannon and reached out, grabbing the strap of my backpack.

We continued up, slowly and cautiously. My brother's eyes constantly scanning through the forest for threats, occasionally stopping me to scout ahead. When he returned, I mustered the courage to ask him something I should have asked years ago.

27.

"What was it like over there?" I asked.

"You mean up ahead?" he replied in a hushed tone. I took the hint and continued in a whisper.

"No... The Proxy Wars."

He stopped dead, nostrils flaring. "First of all, don't call it that. It was a Crusade," he hissed back at me.

"Oh, come on, Phil! You know it was a corporate sponsored--"

"Y’know, it's funny... I don't remember seeing you there," he interrupted. "Oh, that's right. That's because you were a couple thousand miles away watching a bunch of code monkeys on a security monitor."

I clenched my jaw but said nothing.

"I know all the facts about who benefitted from what," Philip continued. "But that doesn't change what went down on the ground. Good men who believed in what they were doing were liquified by railgun rounds in front of me, children were used as bioweapons, and whole villages were vaporized by little shits pushing buttons and looking at MONITORS!

"And then we were told to go home. No explanation, just that a solution had been reached. I should have known we were fucked then."

I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but he turned his back on me and continued his ascent.