Orson worked. On the Aesir’s table, his unending paper disaster had been reduced to three folders: maps, schedules, facts and names.

“Did you sleep at all, bud?” Teddy stood in the open doorway. The Aesir sat again in the packed Earthship garage. “It looks like you’re in the same place you were when I left to snooze, hours ago.” He held a box under his arm.

“I slept a little bit.” Orson closed the maps folder. “I was happy you got to be here another night with the reclamation teams still working, but I wanted to keep watch too. After cooking all day and feeding everyone, you deserved the rest in your own bed.”

Teddy jumped aboard. He placed the sealed box on the table and leaned down to wrap both arms around Orson’s shoulders. Orson stood and returned the hug.

“This wasn’t your fault,” Teddy said. “You’re like another brother. Don’t forget that. You fought to keep us safe. And I think you would’ve saved us even without Franklin and Royce coming here, as awesome as they are. You still fight the good fight every day, man, and when I see Sirona again I’ll tell her about all of it. She’d be so proud of you, if she saw you.”

“That’s really not…” Orson said. “There’s no need, Ted. She and I, we parted on great terms. I know you seem to think…” His mind was still twelve days in the future, imagining the Emperor Valley, the Pinnacle Holdfast, robbing Helmont. He didn’t need his mind drawn elsewhere, caught up with other lives that he hadn’t lived. “I’m really happy for her running the inn, building the life she wants. I’m sure we’ll cross paths again one day, but…”

Orson stopped speaking at the sound of more footsteps. Franklin entered the garage, Jaleel right behind him.

“Why would you only get a new last name?” Jaleel said. “Wouldn’t that make it all basically useless.”

“If somebody calls to you,” Franklin answered. “‘Hey, Jaleel!’ You’d look, right?”

“Probably?”

“You would,” Franklin continued. “Because you learned to do that your whole life. And everyone expects other people to react the right way when they hear their own name. So it is dangerous only taking on a last name, but it’s also dangerous not knowing how to respond to a different first name. Spies can do that shit and serious con men – I’m talking about actual career grifters, but not most people. I could be somebody other than Franklin West, but I don’t think I could be somebody other than Franklin, not without slipping up.”

“So you and Pops and Kash are all…” Jaleel began.

“Pops got a whole new name,” Franklin said. “His came right from the Hierarchia. His birth name’s Earl as much as it’s Pops. But Kash only got the Armstrong last name. Maybe it’s an ethnic thing, I never asked him. But I picked West because it sounds noir, but not too cool. It’s a real last name. Then my former business partner, Wayne, picked Strife for some video game character. Because he’s a huge dork.”

“Wait,” Jaleel said. “Your friend picked Strife, like Cloud Strife, like Final Fantasy?”

“Yeah,” Franklin said. “He thought it was cool, that he’d sound more threatening.”

“Orson!” Jaleel called. “How did you never tell me the Aesir crew has had a Cloud and a Strife at various times. That’s crazy!”

“I didn’t know it mattered,” Orson said. “For all I know about video games, you might as well quiz me on Laotian folktales.”

“But that’s such an old game,” Jaleel said. “How are you so culturally blind? Geez, Orson, you’re not that old.”

“Final Fantasy rings a bell, I think,” Orson said.

“You’re unbelievable,” Jaleel said.

“He’s just a dude, man,” Teddy said. “In a different life, we wouldn’t even know him. He got his hardcore drive and calling to do adventuring stuff because life was mean to him. He wants to right those wrongs in the world. He’s not like us, Jaleel. We were born with the calling of our craft and our work, man! Orson chose his. That’s why it’s so meaningful, what he does.”

“Are you practicing what you’re gonna say to Sirona about all this?” Franklin asked. “You’re gonna play wingman until this blows over.”

“Come on!” Orson said. “Do I need to write ahead and warn her? We were together a long time, but it ran its course. Jaleel and Enoa like to do their little sibling jokes at my expense, but it’s different what you plan to say. You know her!”

“It did NOT run its course!” Teddy yelled. “You decided to choose heroism over love and your crusade over your own happiness. You spent the last years doing all kinds of swashbuckling and derring-do, but I am still rooting for Orona.”

“It is way more complicated than that,” Orson said. “There are so many things I should’ve done better. And don’t give us the weird combined name.”

“Yeah, now I’m getting a little freaked out too,” Jaleel said. “It’s pretty weird to fandom ship real people, and I don’t think going full poet is a great wingman move anymore, Teddy.”

“Maybe that’s true for kids, man,” Teddy replied. “I know what I’m doing. April isn’t with me just for the cooking!” He laughed. “Anyway, this is your best shot. Because Sirona’s single again. And redheaded, snarky, magic women are a lot of people’s type, but I still think you’d do well, man. The swashbuckling thing is cool. I bet she still likes that about you, just in moderation. You went full drifter, and you never go full drifter, man.”

“Teddy’s not wrong,” Franklin said. “I’d say you do pretty well by comparison. Foster, her ex, he was a good guy. He has his steady business and he’s built like a lumber jack…”

“I don’t need to know that!” Orson raised his voice. “I don’t need to know any of this.”

“Don’t get all weird,” Franklin continued. “It’s not like you’re some scrawny little guy. And if you’d let me finish my sentences, I was going to say he was also really, really boring. He’s like the Greek God of boring. He’s Boringcles. It’s like…”

“It’s okay,” Orson said. “I don’t need to pry into her life. I just don’t want to endanger anyone.”

“You wanna know how you’d be safer?” Franklin said. “And everybody else too – and I mean safe enough to actually have relationships in your life and not get targeted like this every time there’s a new freakazoid on the block?”

“If you’re talking about the Alliance job, they just want the Dreamside Road,” Orson said. “And they want the Aesir on their side. They want the Hierarchia’s crown jewels assembled again. But I am not finding the Dreamside Road so it can sit in some government warehouse. So some corporate…”

He fell silent again when April entered the garage, holding the cats’ carrier. Enoa, Cathy, Dr. Stan and Royce followed after her, all carrying last minute luggage and boxes and bags.

“I don’t have any of the political or historical knowledge to comment,” Royce was saying. “But isn’t it a little complicated bringing in other tribes and arming them?”

“Our hope is two-fold,” Cathy replied. “Both integrating some other peoples onto the lands we already hold and teaching others to build and rebuild where they live. But yes, there is history and politics and religion, too. It will not be easy.”

Orson heard the flap of wings before he saw Wesley, as the aeropine flew over his head and out to the cat carrier. He landed and held his forepaws to the carrier’s metal-barred door.

Royce jumped back and yelled. “I will never get used to that guy flying around.”

“He looks like he’s planning a prison break.” Dr. Stan laughed. Wesley turned back to them all, chattering. He looked between Enoa and Jaleel.

“It’s okay, little one,” Enoa said.

“No need for a rescue mission,” Teddy said. “Sorry Mr. Spikey-bat, but Frodo and Sam are coming with us to be safe.”

“You’ll all have to visit the inn soon so they can see each other,” April said.

“Orson.” Franklin leaned against the Aesir’s hull and spoke in a low voice. “I really think you’d be good for that Alliance job, better than you think.”

“Franklin.” Orson shook his head. “Please…”

“Listen,” Franklin said. “Just listen. Pops told me something once, you might think about.”

“What did he say?”

“He said things failed last time, and the Hierarchia was bad, because you couldn’t get away from them. No one knew how powerful they were. And they destroyed everything when they fell, like a tree that lands on your house. But, like trees, governments grow naturally. If you grow them right, they protect you and help you breathe. If one’s gonna grow anyway, you need to prune it, and take care of it. Keep it healthy, and keep it away from your roof. Or something like that.”

“Yeah,” Orson answered. “That sounds like the kinda stuff he’s said lately.”

“I used to think I’d be on the road forever too,” Franklin said. “Just… Think about it.”

“I will.” Orson couldn’t think further than the heist and couldn’t imagine further than the island. But it was the right thing to say, the kind and honorable way to offer thanks and farewell.

“Are we ready to leave?” April asked.

“Oh yeah.” Teddy waved. “We’re just giving Orson a pep talk and finishing the rituals!” He slid the wrapped package toward Orson.

“Rituals?” Franklin asked.

“The ritual gifts!” Teddy explained, each word louder than the last. “For departing adventurers!”

“Oh.” Franklin nodded. “I remember.”

“Yeah, man.” Teddy returned to a normal volume. “We got interrupted by the flock of Jims, but Orson still has to open his gift.” Everyone turned expectantly toward Orson and the small package.

“Sure.” Orson lifted the box. “Thanks, Ted.” He slid his fingers under the tape along the top of the box. He opened it and drew out a small ceramic house, its roof in the shape of a mushroom.

“Is it, uh, a yard decoration?” Orson asked.

“It’s a toad house, of course,” Teddy said. “For the Dreamside Toad you’ve been telling me about. As soon as you wrote to me and said, ‘we’re looking for a toad’, I knew what I had to get you for this adventure.”

“Toad?” Royce asked.

“But Teddy,” Jaleel said. “But that was my typo. Has no one said Dreamside…” Enoa elbowed him once in the stomach, and he stopped talking.

“The Dreamside Toad will need somewhere to live once you find him,” Teddy said. “Or her. You’ll keep that magical toad nice and safe somewhere, man. I tried to get a ‘toad abode’ sign, but I ran out of time.”

“You’re too good to me.” Orson hugged Teddy again. “All of you are. I lead each and every one of you into so much danger.”

“That’s why you need to start making some real bank on your stories,” Teddy said. “There’s a new notebook in the box too. Write down the details. It could earn you a little nest egg that retired-adventurer Orson might appreciate in a couple decades. Chapters from the Dreamside Toad quest would be good for some serial stuff on the New Net.”

“I’ll think about it.” Orson searched the bottom of the box and found the notebook, leather-bound, with thick pages.

“While we talk about your memoirs,” Cathy said. “My uncle wants to know if you fixed your writing about the experiments under Littlefield. He liked most of our portrayal in your book, but he has some notes about the language you used to describe the entities Kappa claimed were from native cultures.”

“I haven’t done anything with the original,” Orson said. “But if I ever have enough money for a new edition, he’ll be the first person I talk to.”

“Are you having more writing done?” April asked. “That’s so exciting! I know you weren’t very happy with the original book, but I still have faith in the idea.”

“I’m… cautiously thinking about it,” Orson said. “But I need to survive the next few weeks before I do more than think about anything.”

“You will.” Teddy reached to the top of his sweater and pulled up a bandana that hung around his neck. It was a brighter red than Orson’s, with no mending stitches, no threadbare patches, no tattered corners. “I’m glad you still keep Ooke’s old one. You’ll wear it into battle?”

Orson raised his own bandana, the faded piece of cloth that still hid his rebreather. It was the same one he’d carried almost every day of his travels, since it first held the desert winds at bay, when he’d been pulled from sand and from certain death by an unlikely stranger, when his new life as an adventurer had begun.

“I always do.”

* * *

Kol had lost weight in captivity. He’d lost mass and lost muscle. He noticed it in the way the plasteel hung across his torso and shoulders and thighs. He felt like a child again, playing at being a knight. Only his helmet fit.

The other Shaper, Zudof, stretched. The metal spokes along his gauntlets and vambraces and breastplate began to quiver like so many compass needles.

Kol faced Zudof, both standing on the inside of a wide, chalk ring, crudely drawn across the Pinnacle roof. Sir Geber watched, and Max, and the assembled lab techs, guards, and Zudof’s two colleagues.

“This is an endurance examination.” Sir Geber’s helmet hissed when he put it on, and it sealed to his bodysuit. “It is not warfare. It is not a wrestling match. If you leave the circle for any reason, you will be penalized. Mr. Maros, in your case, Maxwell will receive the penalty for any misconduct. I intend to strictly examine the limits and capabilities of your Shaping.” Both of the helmet’s antennae twitched. “Begin.”

Zudof raised his gauntlets, palms outward and pointed at Kol. They began to glow a harsh green.

Kol raised his shield in answer. He projected it six feet ahead of himself, enough to buy him some distance. When the energy blasts struck his projection, the afterimage would be disorienting, but not blinding. Then he might keep track of his opponent.

Zudof watched him, and the light at his palms intensified. Kol was grateful for his earlier tests and his private endurance work with the cell door. Waiting would not exhaust him. While he stood, his shield would protect him.

But Zudof didn’t fire at Kol. He spun on his heel and pointed both arms far to the right, toward Max.

He fired, two bursts of light and heat.

Kol made a new shield, a second one. The projection formed just ahead of Max, materializing in the air only inches from his face.

The blasts of light hit the projection with such force they let out audible blasts, like cannon fire. Max fell back against the top of the cart, still strapped into place. He reeled away from the noise and the light and clung to the top of his cart with both hands.

“He is not part of this!” Kol yelled. “Do not fire on him again.” He waited for Zudof to answer or Geber. Neither did.

And Zudof ignored him. He fired twice, one hand at Kol, the other at Max. He struck the shields with another cannon blast, and Kol felt the force of it. He felt it like Zudof had slammed his fists into Kol’s open palms.

Zudof fired again, and Kol staggered backward from the force felt through his projections. But he couldn’t abandon Max, and he couldn’t run to him to combine their defenses without leaving the chalk circle.

And he couldn’t focus on defending only Max. He couldn’t guarantee his brother’s safety if one of the energy strikes hit him and ended his projections.

But when the third strike hit both shields, Kol saw stars. Then his vision narrowed at the edges, darkened. If he didn’t change tactics, his projections might not withstand a fourth round.

So this was his last chance to change tactics.

Kol abandoned his own shield, let it fade away. Zudof turned both glowing gauntlets at him. Kol felt the nape-of-the-neck prickling he did when endangered by another’s Shaping.

But when Zudof sent his power at Kol, a new projection appeared. A wall of blue materialized only inches from Zudof’s palms. The energy blasts exploded right on top of his own hands.

Zudof gasped and yelled and stumbled away. Smoke billowed from his gauntlets.

Kol felt the explosion too, and his vision narrowed further. He felt his knees wobble, the first moments of Thought Fatigue.

But Kol ignored the pain and weariness. He charged across the rooftop. He sprinted. By then Zudof’s right gauntlet began to smolder. Tongues of flame had begun to dance along the left.

Zudof fumbled with his ungainly armor, tugging at the clasps. He muttered and cursed, his breathing heavy. The other two energy Shapers turned to help him, but they were met by a new projection. Kol formed a new ring, a tight circle.

Zudof’s colleagues had lost their best chance to help him. And Zudof had lost all thought of Kol, busy as he was fumbling with his gauntlets. Both burned. By the time he tore them from his arms and threw them to the rooftop, Kol had crossed the roof at a sprint.

The gauntlets had protected Zudof’s hands. They were red and sweaty, but unburned.

Then Zudof noticed Kol or his approaching steps or the new ring of energy. He raised his bare hands again, but by then, it was too late. By then, Kol was on him.

Kol threw his mechanical first into Zudof’s helmet. He felt it crack and shatter. His prosthetic passed through metal and wires. His hand’s sensors sent tingles up his forearm, warning him.

Kol ignored the warning. When Zudof fell away from the punch, Kol slammed into him bodily, drove him down onto the roof. Zudof’s head snapped back against the rooftop.

The world spun around Kol. He knelt on Zudof’s chest and ignored everything else, his fatigue and his fading vision. He let his projection vanish, hoping he had time enough for two good punches.

His prosthetic fist met the side of Zudof’s head. His jaw snapped with a sickly pop. Kol’s left gauntlet slammed down onto Zudof’s right eye socket. The other Shaper’s head slammed down onto the roof again.

There was no time for a third. Arms seized him, and his vision was too narrow, his mind too clouded to process who held him, how many carried him back and away from Zudof.

Then he felt something new, true numbness, a wave of unfeeling that passed from his toes to the top of his head. And he heard the voice of Sir Geber.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Sir Geber said. “This wasn’t really a fight. You’re resisting until you lose, every day. You are alive only because we are waiting for Czar Hawthorne’s permission to kill you. But I would give anything, anything to kill you now, to bind the iron in your body. Hold you helpless. Throw you from the roof. Except I may not do that. So I’m going to let the other apprentices burn you and beat you. We are going to own you for however long it takes the Czar to answer. And you’re going to accept it. Because otherwise we will burn and beat your cripple brother.”

“Kill me now, Geber,” Max yelled. “You’re building a world without honor, and I would rather die than live here to be used against my brother. Grow a spine and kill…” Max’s words died in his throat, a distant sound. Kol wondered if Geber used his Shaping on Max too.

Kol was too numb to look at Max. He could feel only the dim shadow of rage, like anger after an unsettling dream.

“Do you see?” Sir Geber said. “Do you see now what real fighting gets you, Mr. Maros? Remember what I told you when we brought you here. You can be relatively comfortable or very uncomfortable. If you had let Zudof wear you down, you’d have a burn or two, maybe Max too. But now, tomorrow it will be all three of them firing on you. Maybe they’ll kill you. How convenient that would be! There would be no punishment or penalty for me if you die in the course of our work. But it has to be an accident, of course. So you can rest easy. However, it won’t get better here for you. It never will. But I can always make it worse. Think about that. This is the rest of your life, Mr. Maros, and your choices are limited. How do you want to spend your final days?”

* * *

Enoa watched the Hofvarpnir take off and the Shoshone reclamations teams speed away from the Earthship, in the opposite direction.

She sat on the sand beside the Aesir. Twenty drops of water orbited her. They transformed, ice thawed to water, steamed into gas, condensed back into water, and froze back into ice. No two drops were at the same moment of transformation. They rotated around her at shoulder-height, like a fast-motion diagram of the water cycle.

Enoa’s Shaping occupied less and less of her mind. It was less dreamy, less impossible. The muscle in her mind was stronger and she found it at will.

She’d been strong enough to watch Cathy and her crew, Shaping only in the back of her mind. They and the other assembled requisitions teams had returned to their skimmers and cargo craft and their modified garbage truck. They hurried through the still-dark desert.

Enoa let all the water evaporate and joined Orson, Jaleel, and Dr. Stan at the front of the Aesir. All waved to the Hof’s rising lift where Franklin, Teddy, and April stood with the cats’ carrier. Teddy and April waved back. Franklin offered a two-finger salute. Orson returned the gesture, a last farewell.

When the lift rose up inside the ship, the Hof made a smooth ninety-degree turn. Royce waved from the cockpit. Then the ship flew off through the darkness, glowing only from a yellow emissions burst from the final compartment.

Then both were gone. The Aesir crew was left, last and alone, outside the darkened and locked-down Earthship. Jaleel and Dr. Stan climbed back aboard the Aesir. Orson remained, watching the horizon and the Hof’s dim yellow glow.

Enoa saw new light, a hologram from the SITE device on her wrist. She raised it up and read it.

Congratulations (new user)! Keep it up! You make the program proud. Your transmutation is focused and controlled. It may be time to broaden your horizons. Has your mentor introduced a Dawn Project? Rank: Apprentice LEVEL: 15 SHAPE: Anemos MODE: Training

When the hologram faded, Enoa found Orson watching her.

“You’re going to impress that knight when we meet him,” Orson said. “If you still plan to go. This is probably your last chance to get to safety.”

“Nope,” she said. “I have no chance. We’re both totally stuck.” She retracted her staff and clipped it to her belt. “So now what?”

“Cathy set us up with a place in Death Valley where we can hide out until the heist,” Orson said. “Owned by another tribe, but we’ll be keeping to ourselves. I’ll owe her sons a flight in the Aesir next time I come this way, if I live that long.” He laughed. “And I have the floppies lined up with Roger, and some of our transmissions plans together.”

“We’re going to Death Valley now?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”