Rain, antiseptic, soil, and cigarettes. This has to be my home.

Three long years have passed since I've been here, my precious Capital. The Aurelian, sacred to the Ancients, a city built at the center of the Earth passed from one Warlord to the next as nothing more than ruins. Now, it flourishes because of my rule. The familiar sounds of the marketplace echo through the walls. Tribesmen, bounty hunters, warriors, and travelers from afar, their voices hum over the noise of livestock and street music. Vibrant and peaceful, the morning passes just outside my reach.

Ah, yes. Morphine.

Gentle rain patters the dense fabric stretched across wooden rafters far above me, the ceiling endless and covered in foliage. Gray sunlight seeps through the dust from holes in the brick that suffice as windows, the sills holding puddles between the divots in their mortar. Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance and lightning flashes. Trapped in endless summertime, the Southern District balances between torrential rains and relentless heat, the humidity a perfect breeding ground for bacteria to grow inside my wounds. But my infirmary isn't for traditional patients.

"Welcome back, King."

I smile and turn my head against the sad excuses for pillows, flat and yellowed inside their coarse thread cases. "Thief, it's so good to hear your voice again."

"It's good to hear yours too. You had me worried."

She sits beside me in a metal chair smoking cigarettes, surrounded by holograms that monitor my vitals. Long copper hair reaches for her broad shoulders, powerful beneath her black combat suit, and white scars trace her dark skin. She's still beautiful despite the wounds her Corruption refuses to heal, with one eye black and missing, the other silver and decorated with rings in her brow. Intricate burgundy tattoos line her neck and shoulders, angular in design, one for each time she injected herself with poison to survive the aftermath of countless deadly battles.

"You look healthy," I say. She sits tall and Amazonian, with her bulging muscles challenging the tight fabric of her combat suit. "Strong. You've been training."

"I have. You are in bad shape, my friend." She nods to my bandages and stitches. They cover burns and deep lesions, set broken bones already healed, and hold needles to my veins. Long black wires connect me to a glass tank identical to the others in the room, each attached to a hospital bed. Within every enclosure hangs a poor dead Beast, forever preserved in a partial form, dangling from wires and metal bars. Some are skeletal with Corruption devouring what's left, mutation sucking on blackened skin and yellow bones. Some are monstrous with long arms, claws, backward knees and faces split by teeth, silver eyes listless and cloudy as they hover in clear embalming fluid. The infirmary serves as an aquarium of pestilence, with our own corpses floating in jars, reminders of what we will become if we return to this place too many times.

But for immortality? The risk is worth the reward.

I prop myself up on my elbows, stitches and staples pinching in my stomach.

"Hey, hey, hey, easy, take it easy." Thief brushes aside the glowing holograms and helps me sit, untangling the wires from my limbs. I groan and pull my knees to my chest under the cotton sheets, bandages pulling the hairs on my skin. Needles shift in my veins, the morphine cancels out their bite.

"How long was I out?" I set my head against my knees and rub the sand from my eyes. Everything aches.

Thief sits back down and takes her time. She lights another cigarette and blows the smoke in my face, the nicotine tempting--I gave up smoking years ago for Eli but the addiction lingers. Eli. Yes, my heart should sink, but it doesn't, and where there should be emptiness and pain, there's only a restless longing for another fight.

"Not long enough. You shouldn't be awake yet, not after what happened." She throws her lighter on the bed and puts up her feet, crosses her arms, and leans the chair onto its back legs.

"How long," I say.

Her cigarette glows. "Little over a day."

I scrape my fingers through my curls and hold my breath. A day. No Ancient survives that long on Mars. Titan would never allow it.

"You're lucky you came back at all," she says. "There are some things Corruption can't fix."

"I'm not that easy to kill."

"Easier than you think. What happened?"

"It doesn't matter."

We share silence. The market chatters outside. She cocks her head and busies herself with an ashtray, dumping it on the floor, then flicking her cigarette over it. "I sent a team to Onyx to negotiate with the Minister right after I found you. Your boy will be back soon."

"Did you maintain contact?"

"Well, I haven't checked in, I've been busy with you."

"Those kids are dead."

"You don't know that."

"Where did you get a pass?"

"The Minister said we didn't need one anymore."

"That's a rumor and a lie. How many soldiers did you send?"

"Six."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "That's unfortunate. Find them if you can and bring them home, quickly."

"But their mission may be successful--"

"No. Bring them home. If they're dead, bury them. Corrupted, string them up."

"Don't be unreasonable--"

"Don't question my command."

She clenches her jaw, the muscles moving alongside her cheeks, then pulls a glass radio from her pocket. Green lights spread across the surface in symbols I don't care to understand, and she uses them to type up my orders. The lights fade as she tosses the radio onto my bed to join the metal lighter. She leans back again and puts her cigarette out, smoke curling from the edges of her lips. "Are you okay?" she asks.

I reach for her pack of cigarettes on the end table. She nudges them to me, I hold one between my teeth and light it, the tobacco sweet and woodsy on my tongue.

"I thought you quit," she says.

I answer her with smoke.

She sighs. "If you're upset with me, you should know I was in the field when Eli went missing. If I were home I would have done anything--"

"I'm not upset." I flick ashes onto the floor. "Eli wasn't your responsibility."

We smoke, the rain falls, the city mumbles outside. Thief keeps her eye on the holograms while I rest and pray that the morphine never fades.

"Well," she says as she shuts off the holograms. "Did you find Fix?"

"Yes, he's disgusting now. He'll be one of those fat ones, whatever they're called."

"Variants."

"Yeah, one of those."

She settles back into her seat, satisfied with whatever data she found in those green lights. Worry lines fade at the corners of her eyes; that's a good sign, it must mean that somewhere beneath all the drugs in my veins, I'm alright. "Funny," she says. "He was pretty back then."

"This suits him much better."

"I assume you killed him?"

"I haven't yet." I undo the bandages on my arms. "Oh, but I will."

"What are you doing?" She tries to hold me back and I brush her away, ripping needles from my skin and bleeding on the white sheets. The holograms return, red and screeching. I pull the stickers from my chest and free myself from the tank, then tear out my IV. "Where are you going?" she says.

"Mars."

"But you're not ready, your injuries--"

"Have healed enough. I'm getting a pass to the Gateway."

"You can't. You don't have enough credits and you can't steal from the Syndicate anymore."

"Why not?"

She glares. "Because we were poor before you left, and now we're worse."

I nod to the market outside. "Doesn't sound like it to me. No one is hungry."

"Yet," she says. "How will we pay Regent for oil? Saint for weapons? Empress for medicine?"

"We'll trade."

"Then we'll definitely go hungry," she says.

"Fine. I'll hunt."

"For three thousand credits?" She scowls with her one silver eye. "You'd have to kill an Ink Creeper--"

"And I intend to make one." I pull away the covers and climb over the edge of the bed, my hospital gown clinging to my bandages. The brick floor is cold under my feet. I throw the butt of my cigarette away and follow the sounds of the market, trying not to limp.

"Wait." Thief scrambles in the background, boots striking the brick as she hurries to catch my shoulder. "Wait! There's something you need to see."

I wave her away. "Show me when I get back."

"Well, hold on. If you wait one night we can gather forces, find a more tactical method of getting Eli back, the Minister was willing to negotiate with the forces I sent."

"Don't be stupid. And don't follow me, stay and protect the Aurelian until I return."

"Come on, King, don't do this."

I pull the cloth that covers the open doorway and pause. The streets unfold before me, crowded with merchants and ramshackle shops. Children wreak havoc in the alleyways, skinny dogs run under traveler's legs, and rowdy young Ancients shout from the balconies. Among them, armed and dressed in combat suits, walk my soldiers headed out on missions or coming back to train some more. They meander below crumbled skyscrapers infested with oak trees hundreds of years old, branches pouring from rooftops and open balconies, spitting vines over the sidings until they cover the sidewalks. The city's great walls cast shadows and cool the forest of oak trees and crumbling skyscrapers, all of it deep set in a crater left from our forefather's war years ago. The Aurelian has survived generations, safe and hidden from rival tribes and Legion forces, an everlasting city protected by the remnants of a world long dead.

Thief joins me under the threshold with a fresh set of cotton clothes in her hands. She watches the city with me for a moment, rain dripping into her hair and sliding down her face. "It's good to see it again, isn't it?"

I blink. "Show me, whatever it was. Quickly, and then I'll be on my way."

"Will you at least consider staying the night?"

"No."

She raises an eyebrow and gestures to my bandages. "You have to at least wait and see if your body accepts the new dose."

"It has."

"You don't know that yet. Here, your suit's ruined, this is the best I could do." She hands me the black cotton shirt and pants, simple yet comfortable, then leads me back inside--this time I let her. When I strip away the hospital gown I stand modest still in my bandages and underclothes; they cover how far my ribs stick out from my stomach, how yellow boils criss-cross over my burns. Yet my fighter's build remains, slim muscles taut beneath the wrappings. I pull on the cotton shirt and too-large pants, the legs cover my feet and skim the ground, and I tie the string around the waistband twice.

Thief clicks her tongue. "Ah, whoops, I forgot you were this short."'

"I'm not--" My teeth clench, blood boiling under my bandages. I sock her in the stomach. She takes it like a champ. She swings, I duck, she predicts my defense and slams her knee into my face.

"Oh!" I clap my hands around my nose, tears springing at the corners of my eyes. "Why you--" I charge her torso but she rockets her shoulder into mine, catching me into a duck under, before I know it the ground stares up at me. She prepares a ruthless body slam but I evade, locking my legs around her and dropping her to the bricks. She gasps, I whirl my fist to her face, which she catches. I lose my composure and crack a grin, so does she, she bends her head and stifles a dainty laugh. Rain pours outside in sheets.

"What training?" I grab her arm and pull her up. "You're sloppy."

"I haven't slept in days thanks to you."

"That's just an excuse."'

She smiles all crooked, bits of gold and iron in the place of missing teeth. "If you say so."

"Ah, I do miss fighting with you though," I brush a bit of dirt off the armor over her shoulder. "And I do miss your company, Thief."

"Then stay just a bit," she says. "Let's make a better plan. A half-hour, that's all it'll take."

"What was it you wanted to show me?"

Her face falls, the gleam in her one eye disappears. She clenches her fists at her sides. "Maybe it should wait, like you said."

"Thief--"

"Can we just enjoy a few minutes back in the city again? And then we'll see."

"I don't have time."

She shifts her feet and crosses her arms, lowering her gaze to the bricks. "Alright, I get it." Her tone is solemn. "This way."

I trace her steps to a hospital bed on the other side of the room, this one covered by a moldy red curtain, shoved in the one corner without a holding tank. She pauses for a moment at the edge, lifts a finger to draw back the curtain, but stops and steps back.

"See for yourself," she says.

My bare feet slap the bricks. I pad to the curtain and pull it open, the rusty rings harsh against a leaning metal pole in the ceiling. And very quickly I come to understand Thief's hesitation.

"Oh." My shoulders sag. "You poor bastard."

Z lies on white sheets, a cloth over his head on a blood-soaked pillow, his body covered in mutation and open sores. Instead of bloating like Fix, his skin sinks to his misshapen bones that peek through lines of black sinew and torn tissue, his back arched beneath him, last breath frozen inside a protruding rib cage. His stomach falls to his spine as if something devoured him from the inside out, and subtle light bullet wounds dot his chest.

"When did he die?" I walk up to his head and peer at the cloth.

"This morning, but it was over when he got here. We spent most of the night keeping him contained."

"What happened?"

"A company was waiting at the exit. It was a setup."

"Did anyone make it out?"

"A few, about ten."

Ten out of seven hundred, the rest slaughtered, buried, or kidnapped. And the Elite dared to call the residents animals.

"Were there any children?" I ask.

"Yes."

I busy myself at Z's bedside, searching through the pockets of his mangled cargo pants, careful not to get too close to his sores. "Test them for immunity, if any are positive transfer them to the Underground and start their training."

"Already done," she says. "What are you looking for?"

"This." I pull the red transporter from his pocket and hold it up. Tangled wires hang from a disc, each one soaked in blood and ink. "You didn't think to search him first?"

"We couldn't really get too close..."

"I guess it doesn't matter. Look, it's completely busted." I toss it on the side table where it splits into smaller pieces on impact, each one held together by delicate wires. "Only the Minister's personal guards have them. My chances of getting another one are slim."

"I'll send it to Saint, try and get it fixed."

"Don't bother." I cross my arms and stare over my nose at the body, chewing on my lip. "Ah, damn, what a shame. You were good to us, Z." And he was. Thief and I spent years with him in the desert when we were much younger. A master of martial arts, he taught us everything we know about fighting. A battle for his own wreck of a city is a noble enough cause to die for I suppose, or maybe it isn't, maybe the Earth is still cruel and fate is unkind as ever.

We stand in silence for a few minutes and let the rain speak our eulogies for us. The market dies down outside as the thunderstorm makes its way over the city streets, tree branches smashing against the buildings in the warm wind.

"Don't put him up with the others," I say when our silence becomes unbearable. Thunder cracks above our heads. "Give him a proper farewell."

She nods. "I'll make sure of it."

I leave Z to rot on the hospital bed, tearing away my bandages and scattering them across the floor behind me. The cotton shirt rubs against my stitches until they irritate.

"Wha--King! You're leaving now?" Thief slaps the red curtains out of her way and follows.

"I need a drink. Alone."

I greet my city at the doorway and step out into the storm.

WC: 2760