“Incredible!” Manning exclaimed as he held up my new arm. He moved each of my fingers like he was testing the buttons on a new remote. I wouldn’t have minded if he had let me detach it beforehand. “President Frost made such effective use of her resources. I’ve never seen a bionic limb so advanced!”

“If you say so,” I said as I gently tugged my arm back. “For now it’s more of a paperweight. Can we please focus on this makeshift therapy session? I need all the feeling I can get if we’re going to get her back.”

We were standing in Manning’s kitchen. A carton of eggs sat on a table beside us. They weren’t for eating. I had read that grabbing eggs with your bionic limb was a good way to adjust to it. Eggs shattered easily, so if I could grab one without harming it, I’d be fine.

“Of course.” Manning picked up an egg and held it out to me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Beneath our feet was a black towel. It was meant to catch the inevitable ocean of yolks. I took a deep breath and reached for an egg. My bionic arm whirled as my fingers closed around it. That was already progress, seeing as I hadn’t been able to do the same back on the First Ship. I braced myself and took the egg.

CRRRACK!

Bits of egg shell fell around a yolk as it dropped onto the towel. The ruined remains of that egg clung to my hand. I sighed as I wiped the slimy bits off. This was a brand-new arm, and I wanted it to remain stainless.

“Not surprising,” I said. “Nobody gets everything on the first try. Next egg, please.”

“Now that’s the spirit!” Manning picked up the second egg and held it out.

I reached out and grabbed it. It shattered, giving us the same result. The problem was that I couldn’t control the pressure on my new arm yet. How could I when my brain was trying to figure out how the disintegrated arm had come back? I inhaled through my nose to calm myself and grabbed the next egg.

My fingers shook around the shell as I held it up, but it shattered a second later. At least it took longer that time. The fourth egg shattered as quickly the first. The fifth was fine, but…I dropped it. My face heated with embarrassment as it broke all on its own.

Manning glanced at the yolk-soaked towel. “We should rest. You’ve already made stunning progress for the day.”

“You should have said ‘Let’s take a break.’” I held my hand out. “We don’t have time to rest. General Alhabor gets back tonight, so that’s when we need to be ready. Next egg…please.”

“You’re starting to sound like Rebecca. I don’t think she knows how to give up.” Manning adjusted his glasses as his eyes filled with sadness. It had been a while since he’d mentioned her. Did he even know where she was now? I sure didn’t know, and Frost didn’t know we’d taken her back. That was weird because Anderson should have mentioned it during his interrogation. Manning picked up another egg and held it out. He forced a smile. “Your grandfather would have been proud…whether you liked it or not.”

Would I have liked it? His support would have been great, but it was not like he’d ever lost an arm. He’d lost his team, but he’d died before they had. He’d never had to go through this. That was another reason why I had to overcome my situation: it’d be another thing he’d never accomplished.

I ran through another five eggs, each one breaking at a slightly different time. Frustration didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. When Manning handed me the eleventh egg, I wanted to smash it into the floor. It wobbled between my fingers, lasting longer than any other egg. My heart thumped with excitement, but then my thumb shot through the shell. The yolk dripped down, coating my hand. I growled and shook it off. Only one egg left…

“All right, don’t panic.” Manning handed over the final egg. “We can always buy more and try again later.”

I took the egg with a huff. I didn’t want to try again later. I needed to get this done now. I had to be at my best this time. If I lost one more thing, the next thing I lost might end up being my lif—wait, I was holding the egg. It sat between my fingertips without cracking or exploding. I laughed out of sheer joy and held it up like a trophy.

That was when my thumb pressed into it a little too hard. The shell cracked but didn’t break. I moved my thumb away to avoid worsening the damage. If I’d just hurt the egg instead of breaking it, did it count?

Manning gasped. “I think you’ve done it. This is the longest you’ve gone without shattering it!”

I glanced at the egg and then at Manning. The crack was facing me; he didn’t know. I could tell him. I would have told him if we had time to waste.

“Whoa! You’re right!” I placed the egg back in the carton with the damaged part facing me. I closed it, pulled open the fridge, and shoved it back in there. “I know this is cause for celebration, but we’ll do that later. Now that I’m in total control of my arm, I need to get back to my house. Can you give me a ride?”

Manning blinked. “Not so much as a handshake or, better yet, a hug? Suspicious, but I’ll allow it to ‘slide’ due to your accomplishment. Are you going to tell Opifex that you’re leaving this time?”

I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to be rude, so I didn’t dwell on it. “None of this really concerns him, does it? I don’t even see him all that often, so what does it matter if I leave again?”

I headed for the door and struggled to ignore the guilt rising in my chest.

Opifex’s house was empty in both the physical sense and the emotional sense. I headed straight to my room, but I didn’t sense anyone else around. He was probably still at the store. Good.

I kicked my tools aside as I scanned my mess of a room. In reality, they were tools that Opifex had given me after my return. I had lost my actual stuff about two months previously in Red City. I wondered whether the Eachtra and the Columbus were still there…

At that point, I began to fill my suit with the tools I might need: wrench, screwdriver, and metalbound ray (even though I didn’t have a cruiser to use it on anymore). Those were all I really needed. There was no point in overpacking just to somehow lose it all again. So coming back to the house had probably been unnecessary. At least I could wash my face and brush my teeth. My stressful morning had robbed me of that opportunity.

The bathroom was no bigger than a closet, and its rough floor was littered with drain tools. Opifex could have put them in the cabinet, but it seemed he was too lazy. I held my hands under the reflective faucet. It blinked blue and shot out water, which I splashed onto my face. The coldness bit into the permanent grogginess that was my headspace but failed to dispel it. I stood up as cold water dripped down my cheek and glanced at the mirror.

Horrified, I gazed at my bloodstained face right before screaming and backing into a wall. I swatted at my face to get the blood off. My bionic fingers were like metal pipes, undoubtedly leaving bruises as they smacked my skin. I fought back the contents of my stomach and took another peek at the mirror. The blood I had seen comprised nothing more than trails of water dampening my face.

It hadn’t been real. No. Of course not. I leaned against the sink as I panted. This was exactly what I had been telling Frost. I could get a new arm, but I couldn’t put a bandage over my brain. How was I going to fix this?

¿Hay alguien ahi?

I yelped again as I slid off the sink. Apparently, sudden noises still scared me too. Someone was home, and I knew who. Opifex’s ailing mother couldn’t leave the house. She lay in bed all day, sleeping or taking the painkilling drug, Beatitudinem, to numb her pain. She shouted a few other things in the language of the Fourteenth Division and waited for a reply. I couldn’t leave her like that.

I willed my helmet to form around me. It smelled fresher than my last one. I waltzed into Opifex’s mom’s room, and immediately became blind. Not a single ray of light existed in the room, making it as dark as midnight. My suit’s wristlight or helmlight would have helped, but I had another idea. I willed the suit to activate night vision on the slim chance that it had that feature. My old one hadn’t had it, but I had to assume that this one had everything.

I gasped as my visor flooded with green, illuminating the environment. Opifex’s mom lay in a green bed, tucked up to her chin in green covers. Beside her was a green nightstand, on which a green bottle of pills had been placed. I hadn’t realized this feature would turn everything green. Now I could see why no one had talked about it.

“Son!” She rested her baggy eyes on me as her wrinkled mouth formed a smile. Frizzy hair sprouted out of her head. The electronic tone of her voice told me that she was still speaking in her native tongue. I couldn’t believe she recognized me in my new suit. “I have not seen you since you came back. How are you, son?”

I managed a smile. “I’ve been good, Mama Maria. What about you? Are you feeling any better?”

“Yes, yes! But what about you? My little mechanic told me that you’d been feeling down.”

I winced. “Maybe a little, but it’s not—”

“No! It is!” She sat up, but then she hacked into her hand and fell back. I patted her arm as concern filled my chest. “If you were fine, you would have visited me. You were always a sweet boy. Whatever is happening, you must remember who you are. There is nothing you cannot overcome if you refuse to let life poison you.”

I frowned as I thought over her words. When I had lost everything, I had just shut down. I had refused to let people in, and I had been unable to move on. That made sense considering what I’d been through, but I had failed to realize that it had affected the people around me. That hadn’t been fair to them. They cared about me and only wanted to help. They didn’t deserve that treatment.

I squeezed Maria’s hand. “Thank you. When I get back, I’ll stop being a stranger. Get some rest, okay?”

She smiled as she shut her eyes. “Be careful out there. The galaxy is cold and unforgiving.”

She sure didn’t need to remind me of that. I walked out of the room feeling like I’d gotten part of my humanity back. Then I poked my head into my old room one last time before walking away from it. I doubted that I’d be seeing it again…

I headed outside, hopped into Manning’s cruiser, and asked him to drive me to one more location. As he drove us down the street, I collected my thoughts in silence. Thanks to my elevated mood, I was able to appreciate the Moon’s chalky surface a little more. The green blades of grass shrouded in white dust were better than the Earth’s barely alive foliage. These barren streets were nothing compared to the bustling roads and sidewalks back on the base, though.

I missed the base, but it wasn’t like I could go back. For one, Frost was watching me. Secondly, Surge was the one who had given me up in the first place. He had done it to save me, of course, but it still hurt.

We slowed to a stop in front of a corner store with a red roof. A gigantic fake wrench was plastered to the front of the roof. In the past, block letters had spelled out OPIFEX’S GENERAL HARDWARE, but they were gone, and only their outlines remained.

Manning and I left the cruiser and walked toward the store’s glass entrance. I hadn’t felt nervous on the ride over, but approaching the door was terrifying. I had so much to answer for when it came to Opifex. I had abandoned him, I had never talked about my parents with him even though he had been my dad’s best friend, and now I was doing it all again.

I was such an awful godson.

The scent of metal and copper greeted me as I entered the building. The shelves of the store were filled with a variety of tools. An old radio belted out a song in the language that Mama Maria had spoken. Despite the…interesting atmosphere, the only populated area in the store was the counter up front. Opifex stood behind it, holding up a metalbound ray for a couple of bug-eyed guys. They seemed familiar. I think they were his friends.

Opifex looked up at us. A wave of disappointment washed over his face, leaving a frown in its wake. He must have been expecting customers. His friends turned to frown at us too. So much for a private conversation.

“Hey, ain’t you that Epsilon Explorer?” said the guy on Opifex’s left. He wore a blue hat and sported a bushy beard that rivaled Opifex’s. “Oh, maybe not. That guy only has one arm.”

“Of course that’s him, idiota. He lives with me.” Opifex gazed at my bionic limb. “You got a new arm? When did that happen? Do you hide everything from me?”

“I just got this thing!” I pushed down my feelings of annoyance. This needed to be a productive conversation. My emotions couldn’t mess that up. “Look, I came to apologize for how I’ve been acting.”

“I get it, man. ‘Everything’s different’ and junk, right?” Opifex rolled his eyes as he set down the gadget and focused on a computer beside him. He typed away on the keyboard, but I didn’t think he was really paying attention to the screen. “Let me guess, you got that arm from the president. The new suit came with it. Oh, and the instructor dude is here. I’m no detective, but it sure seems like you’re leaving for another crazy adventure.”

I winced, while Manning stroked his beard in amusement. “You’re right. I have to leave again, but that’s why I wanted to talk with you before I did. Opifex, I talked with your mom before I came here. She helped me realize that…I don’t really know who I am anymore. I’m feeling a bit lost these days, and that’s not your problem.”

Opifex’s face twisted with conflict. I was sure he wanted to deliver another snarky comment, but he couldn’t bring himself to. The dude’s heart was still as big as his beard.

“Tell him everything, Wander,” Manning said as he gently pushed me forward. “He deserves a peek into your thoughts.”

I nodded as I approached the counter. “I used to be an innocent kid who breezed through school and had loving friends and family. Living with you reminded me of that. Now my life is complex and dangerous. I’m stuck with all these responsibilities, but I didn’t ask for any of them. Most kids have an idea of what their future’s gonna look like, but mine is a bunch of colorful scribbles on a wrinkled piece of paper. Truth is…I pushed you away because you were too normal to be in my life. I’m sorry.”

The guy on Opifex’s right whistled. Most people weren’t used to these emotional speeches my friends and I gave. I wondered how they vented.

“Man, you could have said something earlier,” Opifex responded. “Life changes all the time. How do you think I felt when my Ma got sick? The trick to dealing with it is to go with the flow but on your own terms. Don’t push people away. Just treasure the connections you still have.”

Opifex’s friends clapped as he furrowed his brow at them. I laughed at how red his face turned. He’d never said anything that profound.

“Didn’t know you had it in you,” said the dude on Opifex’s right. His face was hairless, but he had a red triangle on his shirt. “Have any wisdom to bestow on us, pal?”

“Yeah: buy something or get out because this isn’t a hotel, man!” Opifex jabbed a finger at the entrance while his friends laughed. I’d come to think of the galaxy as a cruel place devoid of light. But, thankfully, moments like this existed. So I knew better. Opifex pointed at me next. “And you! Get over here. You’re not leaving without a hug this time.”

Thank goodness for that. I ran to my godfather and hugged him. He smelled like the metal items filling his store. His bushy beard made it feel like I was hugging Santa. The warmth of happiness burst into my chest. I couldn’t believe I’d thought I was alone just because I didn’t have Laura. Hopefully I’d stop being so stupid.

As our hug ended, Opifex thrust his hand out toward Manning. “You’re going with him, right? Take care of our boy for me, Instructor.”

Manning beamed as he gripped the hand. “I will do everything in my power to keep him safe. Take my word for it.”

“You know, we don’t have to go yet. Frost still hasn’t told me it’s time.” I pointed at my phone with my right hand. It had been a while since I’d been able to do that. “We have time to catch up. Is there anything you wanted to know about our adventures?”

He shrugged. “You tell me, man. What kind of people did you meet out there? Was there anyone even half as cool as me?”

I sucked air through my teeth. “So, there’s this girl. Her name’s Nessa…”