In the room just across the hall, Benji was sorting through his meager luggage while trying to convince the most annoying boy he had ever met to leave him alone. when he and the boy had heard the name “John Seid” shouted across the hallway, Ariel Fares didn’t waste any time in launching into a litany of questions about Rivenstad, about the war, about the Dharists and the Solists and AmEterna and –

Benji ignored every question, or at least tried to. He was too busy trying to arrange his room just so. The chair was moved to a spot just behind the door – Benji opened the door experimentally, making sure that when it was fully open it touched the back of the chair. He pulled the door partially closed again, then started to pull it open forcefully, but stopped before it would have struck the chair. Benji nodded approvingly and shut the door.

“Why’d you put a chair over there?” Ariel asked, sitting cross-legged on the room’s second mattress, which had no sheets on it. Benji scowled and motioned toward the door.

“What are you even doing here, kid? Initiation isn’t till morning.”

“Well, no,” Ariel said. “But we were supposed to be roommates – I mean, originally, before the Deputy Director decided against it.”

“And I can see why he decided against it,” Benji said. “You’re just a little kid. He must have known you’d drive me completely insane if we had to live together and figured Ifterra Project doesn’t need mentally unhinged workers.”

“Ryan!” Ariel exclaimed, looking slightly scandalized at Benji. “That’s not very nice of you. You should know better than to talk that way to a ‘kid’! Besides, I’m not some little child.”

“You look kind of little from where I’m standing,” Benji snarled, pushing his bed into the corner of its alcove and setting a long, thin, flat box just under the edge of the bed, so that it jutted out width-wise from underneath. “Might be wise of you to get out of the way before I get over to that side of the room, I think.”

“Is that a threat?” Ariel looked genuinely surprised at Benji’s hostile reaction. His back straightened and his eyes darted toward the door. “I really don’t understand why you’re acting like this. I mean, I get that it’s always a bit weird to meet new people, and this is a new place for you and you’re surrounded by unfamiliar everything, but come on. I just want to get to know my group.”

“Your group? We aren’t even working on the same parts of the project. The only reason we are even here together is because of timing. Pure convenience. And it’s not my job to be friendly to annoying teenagers with too many questions –“

“Well, I’ll stop talking if you’ll tell me a bit about yourself. Or Rivenstad! I’ve never been there.”

At the mention of Rivenstad, Benji made a face so sour that even Ariel clearly noticed where he had gone wrong. He stood up from the spare mattress and took a step toward the door, then stopped. “Ryan,” he said, “I know there’s a war but that’s part of why I wanted to ask. We don’t get that much news about the outside world here. Well, I guess ‘we’ do, but nobody tells me anything. I’m just supposed to focus on the stars, or everyone else seems to think so.” He put his hands in his pockets.

Benji had to admit, the kid looked dejected, and he felt a little bit of sympathy for him. But Ariel clearly didn’t understand boundaries, and like it or not, this was a lesson he was going to have to learn. Better that I be teaching it than somebody else who might actually hurt him. Benji kicked at the box under his bed and glowered at Ariel, trying to puff himself up to seem larger and more threatening than he felt. “Ariel Fares,” Benji said, “I am giving you thirty seconds to get out of my home before I open this box up. You want to know about Rivenstad? Go talk to that stab-happy girl the next room over. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to answer all your questions, and tell you all about how right her side is.”

Ariel, backing toward the door, started to sputter, unable to form a full sentence. “Go on, get out of here!” Benji shouted, waving his arms toward Ariel. The teenager pulled the door open and ran out into the hall. Benji winced as the door slammed against the back of the chair he’d placed there, but it caused no real damage.

Benji sighed when he heard the door shut, moved over to the far wall, and sat down, staring up at the window and at the view of outside. There were a few lonely trees standing throughout the courtyard there, but for the most part it was a landscape of steel and concrete and glass. Benji stood up, walked over to the window, and pulled the blinds closed. Ariel’s and Hope’s voices drifted over from the next room, too low to understand, speaking hurriedly.

Benji sat back down, his back to the window, staring at the door, and let his eyes drift shut while he waited for the time to pass away.

When he was finally jolted awake by a knocking on the door, Benji shot up to his feet and nearly went for the box under his bed. He relaxed when he realized where he was and heard the voice from the other side of the door – Hope’s voice. “Hey Ryan, are you in there? We have to go.” He gritted his teeth a bit at the sound of Hope’s voice, but quickly took a deep breath and called out a response.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out,” he said, and made his way to the door, opening it just a crack and slipping through into the hallway. Hope looked up at him, vague concern on her face. A part of Benji wanted to say something, to push Hope away, but the way she looked at him, concerned but not nosy, not trying to push into his life and ask questions he wouldn’t want to answer… Perhaps I misjudged her, Benji thought as he held out a hand toward Hope.

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet under the best of conditions earlier,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too stiff and insincere. “Things have just been –“

“It’s completely fine,” Hope said quickly, cutting Benji off. “I don’t need to hear your excuses. You’re clearly under a lot of stress, and I didn’t help matters yesterday. Just try not to get into any more fights, alright?” She paused, started walking toward the building’s exit, motioned for Benji to follow. He followed.

“That includes with Ariel, by the way,” Hope said. “I understand the kid was annoying you, but he really didn’t mean any harm. He’s just trying to learn about the outside world and we’re… well, we’re all people from outside. Can’t blame him for having some questions.”

“Maybe,” Benji said, his chest tightening, pushing his hands into his pockets. “But he was asking about the war.”

Hope let out a slow breath. “Yeah,” she said. “He was.”

“What did you tell him?” Benji asked, then immediately wished he hadn’t. He turned away and did not look Hope in the eye as they approached the door.

“I told him John Seid thinks he can summon the divine to his side by killing half of Rivenstad.”

Benji blinked, and turned his head, and looked over at Hope. The name John Seid left a bitter taste in his mouth, but to hear Hope speak of him so harshly… something in him relaxed a bit. But she was facing away, eyes on the floor, hand hovering over the hilt of her sword. Benji noticed the rapid rise and fall of Hope’s breath as they came to the exit.

“Anyway,” she said, “Afafa left a few minutes ago but we should be able to catch up easily enough. From what I understand the Deputy-Director is going to be giving us the basic outline of the project – which I’m sure we both already know enough of anyway – and introducing us to our immediate superiors. The people we’ll be working directly under, I mean.”

“And do you know who that is, in your case?” Benji asked. “I know less than you might assume. I’m only here because of a favor from the Deputy-Director. But that’s not to say I’ll be dead weight – I know Hope’s Enclave doesn’t need any more of that. I’m working in fabrication and engineering, or I will be.”

“Dead weight?” Hope raised an eyebrow. “Honestly, that’s surprising. This whole place seems, I don’t know, a bit empty. And with all the resources we have – you sure the higher-ups are really worrying about ‘dead weight’?”

Benji shrugged.

“Anyway,” Hope went on, “I don’t know who’s directly in charge of us. You or me.” She opened the door and ushered Benji outside with her, out into the bright, almost oppressive sun of the early morning. It came suddenly in Koldrai_en, from dark to bright in minutes, with no respite from the sun except on rainy or foggy days. This was not one of those days, though Benji had heard they were numerous for most of the year.

“About…” Benji began, struggling to make the words come out right. “You know. Him.” Hope nodded slowly, and even Benji could see the muscles bunching up in her jaw, her eyes cast toward the ground. “I have to admit, I must have misjudged you. You carry yourself almost like a soldier.”

Hope made a pained sound in her throat. Benji couldn’t make eye contact with her – she wouldn’t even look near him, although she gestured for him to follow and she walked him through narrow corridors between steel buildings, switchbacks and tangles of intricate road – road like wiring, like veins, or the synapses inside Benji’s brain. It was nearly a minute before she spoke.

“I’d rather not talk about the war if it’s all the same to you. Not now.”

“But it’s –”

“Please.”

Part of Benji wanted to protest at Hope’s avoidance, wanted to shout out that she couldn’t just pretend the war wasn’t happening, especially when they were fighting on the behalf of people like her. He wanted to spell out for her exactly why he couldn’t bring himself to stop thinking about the war for a single second, even when he was buried in his work. Why it took the mental chaos of trying to build a machine that wouldn’t fall apart immediately, just to keep him occupied and give his heart a little peace.

Who am I kidding? I can’t even tell her my real name.

Besides, he realized, he’d already tested Hope’s patience enough. He couldn’t afford to be isolated here, not if he wanted to survive in the long term. Isolation, scorn, mistrust – that’s death, he told himself. Death in another guise, death simply waiting for its own conclusion.

“Alright,” he said, and he stretched out his hand. Hope must have realized after a moment that he’d stopped, because she turned around and finally met his gaze. “I’m sorry for pushing the issue, and…” He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “I’m sorry for my rudeness, yesterday.”

She took his arm by the wrist and twisted her own arm, so that her hand was under his. Instinctively, Benji grabbed Hope’s wrist in turn. Though the gesture was strange to his muscles, it wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Benji recalled, many years ago, a visit between his Village Representative and one of the Solist councils of Pomme’s New City core. He gave a strained smile, and a nod. When he pulled out of the hold, it was with a jerking motion, though he felt a twinge of guilt at pulling too hard to get his hand away from Hope’s.

“We’re meant to meet with the Deputy-Director over there,” Hope said, pointing toward a large set of gates just across a courtyard. Benji looked over his shoulder, cast his gaze around the area, and realized he had no idea where they were, but he nodded and followed Hope toward the gates.