The dome appeared over the horizon, and tears stung the corners of his eyes as he saw it. Vern Slupman was almost home, but home would never be the same. It wasn’t going to be as simple as returning to his old routine and his beautiful boring everyday life. Things were going to change, and not likely for the better.

They drove miles and miles past the usual western military dock. Vern’s mouth dried for the first time since leaving Westendale. He was beginning to wonder if they were going to surpass the dome completely before the aircar finally veered toward the farmlands beneath the smaller, adjacent dome in the north.

“Why are we going here?” He asked the black-suited man beside him, but he knew the answer. MoShun didn’t want anyone to know that he was back. No hero’s return for Colonel Slupman, the man who killed his own squadmates.

He got no response, as predicted, and decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the journey. The aircar descended and landed in one of the many empty landing docks of the smaller dome. The driver choked the engine, and silence reigned, interrupted only by Vern’s racing heart.

The parking pod shifted and rotated, bringing them into the dome. Conflicting feelings of comfort and dread tugged at him as the machinery swallowed them. The car started again once the pod stopped moving, and they were off flying over the sea of tidy crops. They reached the main dome and entered through another shifting pod, and were now passing through the industrial area of the Slupman District.

A jungle of factories, recycling plants, and all sorts of other ugly buildings stretched below them. Polluted canals formed a checkerboard pattern around all the buildings. This is a good place to hide a body. He swallowed a lump and squeezed his right hand once he noticed it had been trembling.

The aircar lost significant altitude as it appeared to be landing. Vern’s guts rose as the car fell. It brought back memories of the squad’s craft coming down. I shouldn’t have done it. I should be out there with them right now, torching that nest. Best of luck, guys.

The car stalled at ground-level, and the man in the black suit raised the door. It hissed. The man exited and immediately turned with an extended hand into the car. Vern tried in vain to control his breathing. He grabbed the hand and was helped out of the vehicle.

They were in an open cement lot where a building must’ve stood some time ago or where one would stand in the future. Another car waited a few dozen yards away. It looked no different than the one he’d just exited—black paint and black windows.

“Go,” the man in the black suit said.

“Where?” The backseat door of the other car opened just as he asked it. “Oh.”

“Thank you for your service, Colonel Slupman.”

Vern looked the man up and down, trying to detect any sarcasm, but simply nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

With his head held high, and his triumphant sunglasses shading his true feelings, Vern Slupman marched toward the waiting backseat. The gaping door cast a shadow, and the car's interior was just as black as the rest of it. What was waiting for him in there? A man with a gun? A couple of masked men ready to drive him to the most remote part of the dome to drop his body off? Or might the car simply be rigged to explode, with someone’s finger hovering over a button, licking his chops in anticipation?

Whatever it might be, he had no choice. He entered the car.

“Vern!” Weak arms wrapped around him, tight enough to hurt his crushed elbow.

Vern winced and was about to pull away before realizing he was being embraced by his uncle, Von Slupman, cousin Erina’s father. “Uncle!” A shade of doubt passed through him. Is this who they’ve sent to kill me? What do they have on him? It was impossible. The only way Uncle Von would ever turn on him would be if Erina’s life depended on it. “How’s Erina?”

Uncle Von laughed. “Don’t worry, Vern. I’m only here to take you home. Well, we’ve got one stop to take care of first. Erina’s fine. She’s consumed by the pageant lately. It’s all she talks about.” He looked at Vern’s injured arm. “Rough out there, I see.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Vern said. “So she’s really going through with it? The pageant, I mean.”

The Miss Dome Pageant was a massive deal under the dome. It came once every four years and nearly brought the dome to a stop every time. Workers tuned in to watch over the month of competition. Classrooms streamed it on wall-screens, and twenty-four-hour coverage ran on at least one building-side screen per block.

There was a dark side of the pageant that the average citizen didn’t know about, however. Betting, sabotage, blackmail, and in some past cases, even murder. It was the last place any young woman should be, yet it was the one place every young woman wanted to be, or at least, where they thought they’d wanted to be until they got there. Erina knew about the corruption, yet she still couldn’t help but crave the fame and glamor. He’d tried to talk her out of it but had evidently failed.

“Afraid so,” Uncle Von said as the car started and took flight. “I reminded her of all the things you’d told her, but she didn’t care. You know Erina. The idea of her likeness being plastered all over the city is her idea of heaven. She’s the only Slupman I know who gets angry at not getting noticed while walking around in public.”

Vern laughed. “She’s got her mother’s blood, that’s for sure.”

Uncle Von rolled his eyes. “A little too much of it. That same fiery spirit that drew me to Dea is the same that’s turning my hair grey in Erina.”

Vern smiled. He wished the drive with Uncle Von would last forever. His smile faded. “What’s this first stop you mentioned?”

“Don’t worry, Vern,” Von said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I won’t let it.”

“Answer the question, Uncle. Please.”

“We’ve got to make a quick stop at the neon tower,” Von said.

Vern’s eyes widened. He was expecting to have at least a day or two of rest before having to report.

Von put a hand up. “The big cheese just wants to talk with you. He’ll probably just ask how the mission went. You know how he is. Some men have drugs. Some men have drink. MoShun craves details.”

Vern was aware of that, and it’s what had him shuddering. MoShun loved details. He’d want as many as possible, could likely sniff out lies like a hound, and Vern was going in there with nothing but fabrications.

“Why do you look so nervous?” Von chuckled. “He’ll ask you how it all went down, you’ll answer, and you’ll be back in the car before your seat has time to cool off.”

Vern nodded and forced a smile. “You’re right. I guess it’s just always a little nerve-racking talking to the big guy.”

“I get that.”

They sped through the hundreds of miles that made up the Slupman district and even passed over Vern’s home at one point. Uncle Von caught Vern up on everything else that had been happening since he’d left and managed not to ask about the mission despite his curiosity. Once the building density thickened and the average car in the airways rose in luxuriousness, Vern realized they’d crossed over to the MoShun district.

The light conversation they’d been having had calmed Vern’s nerves. It had been great hearing about mundane and familial things after nearly a week outside the dome, but the bright advertisements in the MoShun airways brought reality crashing back into the front of his mind.

It wasn’t long before the neon tower came into view. Sakero MoShun’s headquarters was an unmistakable architectural feat. To any citizen in the lower streets or higher airways, the building was the definition of beauty and wonder. To many in the know, the tower was regarded as a portal to Hel itself.

The MoShun family headquarters towered over every other building, and its colors made it stand out so much that it was hard to even notice the surrounding structures, despite them beaming with their fair share of eye-catching advertisements. Lights draped the tower like a blanket. Every color of the rainbow cascaded from the peak to the ground in a perpetual cycle like a waterfall.

It was the only building in the district without ads and the only one without little shops along its walkways. Vern wondered if the driver behind the opaque partition, whoever he or she might’ve been, would have any trouble finding the landing dock. The shifting colors were so disorienting that it was difficult to make anything out.

The aircar lowered abruptly, overturning Vern’s stomach, and they approached the building at a worrying speed. Vern braced himself, but the car settled on a small dock that jutted from the side, just a few floors above the high-walkways. The car idled. Vern didn’t move.

“What’s wrong?” Uncle Von asked.

“I don’t want to go,” Vern said.

Von chuckled. “What are you talking about?”

He wanted to spill his guts and reveal everything about the mission and the deception, and the fact that he hadn’t actually gone through with any of it, but he knew that would mean his death, and likely his uncle’s death, too. Instead, he simply shook his head and pretended he didn’t know what he was worried about.

“I know MoShun is an intimidating guy,” Von said. “Trust me. I’ve had to do business with him once. He has a way of staring into your soul where you almost start negotiating on his behalf against yourself. But your situation is different. You’re returning from a super important mission. I don’t know much about it, but I know who they sent you with. Wolf, West… those are some high-quality guys. So whatever happened out there, and the fact that you’re the only one returning, well, to someone looking in from the outside, it looks like you’re coming home a hero. MoShun will recognize that. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

He pitied his uncle. The man was highborn enough to enjoy the spoils of the rich but not highborn enough to be privy to how things truly worked behind the scenes. His status was the highest in which naiveté could survive.

There was nothing he could do about it. Vern would just have to get out of the car, walk into the neon tower, and get the meeting over with. He squeezed his uncle’s shoulder with affection and left.

The landing dock led to a narrow tunnel dimly lit by pink tiles that ran along the center of the ceiling. The walls were dark concrete, and the floor was tiled with old linoleum made to look like stone bricks and was heavily used in the middle.

He walked for a long minute before finally reaching a red steel door. He pulled at the handle and had to put more force into it when his first attempt failed to even budge it. The door swung inward toward him with a metallic moan and opened into an almost blinding corridor of white. The ceiling, walls, floors, and even the lights were white, and all were polished, cleaned, and maintained so that they looked like they’d never seen a bit of use.

The only thing that broke the whiteness were men in black suits stationed at a hard-to-see door every twenty or so yards. None of them even bothered to turn their heads when he entered the corridor. Vern looked from left to right a few times, trying to decide which way to go. He considered asking one of the stationary suits, but they didn’t seem like the type one should disturb.

He turned his gaze to the right again and nearly jumped from his boots. A short, but intimidating man, in a black suit like the rest of them, stood before him. Where he’d possibly come from, Vern would never guess. The man was the only one in the corridor without sunglasses, and his narrow eyes and straight black hair suggested he was a native of the MoShun District. “Come with me.” His accent confirmed it.

Vern nodded and followed as the small man turned away and glided down the long corridor. They turned left. They turned right and kept turning until Vern lost count. Every new passage looked the same. Even the guards were indistinguishable. It came to a point where Vern wondered if the man had been leading him through the same stretches of corridor to disorient him. If so, it was working.

Eventually, the man halted abruptly, spun on his heels to face another white door, indistinct from the many others, and stomped a foot on the floor, leaving a black scuff on the otherwise perfect floor. Vern winced at the sight as if he’d been responsible for marring the flawless look of the corridor. His heart raced as the man tapped lightly on the door.

The man must’ve had better ears than Vern because he opened the door to some unheard signal. A fresh coat of sweat seeped from Vern’s pores as the door glided open without a creak or squeak. The man in the suit waited patiently with a hand extended toward the room. Vern couldn’t do it. He tried to muster the will, but he just couldn’t bring himself to move forward. A dark part of him wished he’d actually murdered the squad like he was supposed to. There was no way they’d survive in the nest. He’d very likely sacrificed himself and his loved ones just to extend his squadmates’ lives by a few days. These higher-ups make being a psychopath seem so easy.

Some unseen force took control of his limbs, and Vern found himself walking into the room. More white. Somehow, the room was whiter than the corridors had been. Even the desk at the far wall was white. A man sat behind the desk. His suit was white. His tanned face and black, glistening hair looked like a floating ball in the sea of whiteness around it. It was MoShun.

Sakero MoShun sat in dead silence. His eyes, though hard to see through his narrow lids, were fixed on his visitor. Vern’s mouth was dry, and he could barely control his shallow breaths.

“Welcome home,” Sakero MoShun said. Two receptive hands floated upward to join the head. “I’ve been told that you’ve concluded your business. I commend you if this is true. General Wolf is no easy man to fool, and that fails to mention the rest of the elite company he was sent with.”

Vern nodded. At least, he thought he did. He hoped he did.

“What’s wrong, Slupman?” MoShun said as his hands sank into the white void behind his desk. The floating head looked around, then laughed. “Apologies. Color distracts me. Here. Perhaps this will make you more comfortable.”

One of MoShun’s hands came up again, this time with a tiny piece of black plastic in its grip. He pushed a button, and a zapping sound snapped through the air. Vern flinched. The whiteness faded as the walls transformed into mahogany. The ceiling darkened into black tiles, dotted with warm lights. The floor looked like black carpeting, but a quick touch with the tip of the boot told Vern that it was still the same material it had been a minute ago.

Sakero MoShun was still in a white suit, but his desk was mahogany now. He set the remote on the desk and clasped his hands before him. “Is this better?”

Vern looked around in shock.

MoShun chuckled. “This meeting will go much better and much quicker if you speak.”

Vern nodded and swallowed even though his mouth was dry. “Sorry, Sir. I’m just… It was a long mission.”

MoShun put his hands up before clasping them together again. “I understand. You will have plenty of time to rest, I assure you. First, I must ask for a few details. A lot is riding on this mission, and I need to know that everything went according to plan. The future of the dome depends on it. Do you understand?”

“Of course, Sir,” Vern said. “I’ll do my best to remember every detail you require.”

He thought he’d regained his composure, but a quick chuckle from MoShun brought the doubt flooding back in. MoShun pointed to an X on the floor in front of his desk. “Please. Have a seat.”

Vern regarded the spot and wondered if the head of the MoShun family was seriously asking him to sit on the floor like a dog. Another touch of MoShun’s remote cleared things up as the X on the floor opened up, and a cushioned stool rose from the depths. A perfectly sized platform rose with the root of the stool and clicked into the square hole, making it look like it was never there.

He took a seat and tried in vain to relax.

“Is there anything you want to say before we begin?” MoShun asked.

Vern pursed his lips, taken off-guard by the question.

“I respect the Slupman bloodline,” MoShun said. “That’s why I chose you for this mission. I know you’re intimidated, but I don’t want you to be. I think this could be the start of a new era of trust and partnership between the MoShun and Slupman families. We all know there’s enough backstabbing between the Big Four, and I’m sick of it. I’m sure you are, too.”

That explained why Uncle Von had been the one to pick him up in the industrial lot. Maybe MoShun was serious about wanting a stronger alliance between the families. And now you’ve gone and messed it up by not killing the squad.

“Thank you for sending my uncle to pick me up,” Vern said. “It was nice to see a loved one after everything I’ve gone through out there. I look forward to this new relationship and will do everything in my power to get my father to see things the same way.”

“Vick is a stubborn man,” MoShun said with a smile. “But that’s part of what I respect about him. As for Von, I’m afraid I must confess…” He fished another remote from somewhere in his desk, pushed a button. Scratchy audio started playing from somewhere above, though Vern couldn’t locate any speaker.

“I hope he’s alright in there,” Uncle Von’s voice played through the air. “I’ve never seen him so nervous. And that’s saying a lot when it comes to Vern.” The driver laughed, and uncle Von continued. “I remember one time, we brought him to Cloud Park—” The audio cut out as MoShun pushed a button.

Vern stared in silence. The car had been bugged. No shit, Vern thought. It would be more surprising if it weren’t. It all made sense now. Uncle Von had been sent to take him off his guard. Maybe Von’s presence would soften Vern up enough to have him reveal some secrets, all while MoShun’s ear was in there with them. Weaponized comfort.

“I only show you this because I’m serious about wanting better relations between our families.”

“I don’t understand,” Vern said. “How can showing me that you don’t trust me build better relations? With respect, of course, Sir.”

“A just question,” MoShun said. “Each of my cars is bugged. It’s not like I put one in there specifically for your ride here. I just wanted to let you know for trust’s sake. And, for whatever my word might be worth, I assure you I did not listen in to your drive.”

“I believe you,” Vern lied. “Thank you for your honesty.” It was probably best to butter him up before slapping him with the barrel of lies Vern had brought in there with him.

“Now,” MoShun said. “Shall we get started?”

Vern nodded.

Sakero shrugged. “Well? Tell me how it went. You were tasked with terminating…” He looked down at a small screen on his desk and read, “General Wolf, and colonels Dalton West, Luna Belmont, Trent Sterling, and Hilde Rosek.” He looked up from the screen. “You’ve done this, yes?”

Vern nodded again—one deep, slow, grim tilt of the head. “I did, Sir.”

“You don’t look too pleased. Perhaps you fail to understand what you have truly accomplished for the future of your city.”

“Perhaps,” Vern said. “It was just a difficult thing to do, Sir. I was growing to like them. Killing them in their sleep will haunt my dreams.”

MoShun perked up behind his desk. “You did it in their sleep, then? Would you mind going into more detail?”

Vern recoiled slightly. He couldn’t tell if the head of the MoShun family was asking for more detail to better sniff out a lie or if he simply got off on macabre stories. It might have been both, judging by the look in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Vern said. “They were all asleep in an underground parking lot, and I was keeping first watch. I snuck up on each of them and cut their throats.” It wasn’t the hardest thing to lie about. He had indeed snuck around to each sleeping squadmate as he kept watch. The only detail he had to lie about was slitting their throat instead of dosing them with a dash a Belmont’s Slumbora to steal their comms. He was going to ask if the men had given MoShun the stolen comms yet, but Sakero spoke first.

“What did you use?”

“For what?”

“To cut their throats!”

“Oh.” Vern stammered. “I did the General first. I took his knife from his belt, took care of him, then the others, and left the knife behind.” His first instinct had been to say he’d used his own knife, but MoShun would have likely asked to perform tests on it, which would have revealed his lie within a day or two.

“Underground parking lot,” MoShun pondered for a moment. “So you couldn’t go through with it until you reached Westendale?”

“That’s correct,” Vern lowered his head to feign shame.

“Get that chin up,” MoShun said. “You did something not many could do. You should be proud.”

He wanted to ask why it was so important to kill the squad, but he knew better than to delve into the intentions of the higher-ups. They played a completely different game than the rest of humanity. “Thank you, Sir.”

MoShun perked up again and raised a finger. “What about Private Ace? Can’t believe I almost forgot. Did he perform well?”

“He did, Sir.” That was no lie.

“And did you terminate him?”

“I did, Sir.” That was…

MoShun let his gaze drift past Vern’s shoulder. “It’s a shame, really. But it had to be done.” He slapped both hands on his desk and shifted his eyes back to Vern, who’d jumped an inch off the stool at the sudden sound. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I’ve got to get ready for an important meeting tonight. I just wanted to look into the eyes of the man who has single-handedly ensured the future prosperity of the dome and shake his hand.” He got up from his chair behind the desk and extended a hand.

Vern shook it and felt sick in the process.

“Welcome home, Slupman. You’ve done a great thing.” MoShun let go of the shake and pointed to the door with an exaggerated smile.

Vern smiled back, left the stool, and started for the door. A quick zapping sound hurt his ears, and the room was doused in white again.

“Oh yes,” MoShun said as Vern was just about to reach the door and escape the room. “I almost forgot. Your surgery has been scheduled. I’ll have all the information sent to your apartment by tomorrow morning. Once again, I thank you for your service.”

Vern nodded and left the room. The door closed without anyone touching it, and Vern found himself alone in the blinding white corridor. The man who’d led him there was gone. The black scuff mark he’d left on the floor was gone, too. Vern’s bottom lip trembled a bit before regaining control of his emotions. A small, foolish part of him had hoped the surgery would no longer be necessary. That perhaps MoShun, with his new apparent longing for trust between the families, might think twice about it. But that wasn’t the case.

Vern Slupman started down the corridor. The fact that it might take him hours to remember the way out of the labyrinthine white hallways didn’t bother him as much as it should have. His mind was preoccupied with the thought that he only had a day or two left in his life as Vern Slupman.