Scene 1. Overheating
The light died.
The haze filtering through the canopy peeled away one layer at a time and vanished. The forest's ceiling closed. The outlines of trees were erased. Trunks gone, branches gone, leaves gone. What remained were silhouettes. Black pillars standing in rows on either side. Darkness filled even the empty spaces between them.
Ian walked.
Darkness had eaten his vision, but his feet did not stop. No grid needed. The gradient of the terrain he had read during the day was still stored in his soles. His muscles remembered. Not his brain but his legs held the heading.
'Patrol unit, three. Regular report cycle, two hours. Time of last transmission, unknown. Worst case, absence already flagged.'
Time. Time was shrinking. The Empire's communication system dispatched a verification unit to the sector the moment a missed check-in was detected. If the verification unit found the bodies, the search radius would triple. He had to clear this stretch before that happened.
Ian's stride widened.
One span. A deliberate extension. Because time was shrinking. Each step bought half a second. Half-seconds stacked into a minute, and a minute could put him beyond the outer edge of the search radius. Ian's brain was running that calculation. His legs were executing the result.
Behind him, the group's breathing changed.
A metallic sound. With every inhale, something scraped inside their throats like metal on metal. The sound of lungs hitting their limit. Ian's brain received it. Received and converted. Engines. The warning tone of engines running past redline. The scrape of cylinder walls being scored by pistons pushed beyond capacity.
Maria's breathing was the most uneven of them all. Pushing the group from behind, catching those who stumbled, hauling up those who fell—her breathing stuttered and resumed, stuttered and resumed. Still, Maria's feet did not stop. She did not lose Ian's back.
The rest were different.
The intervals between footsteps were stretching. The distance between Ian's stride and the group's widened by one step at a time. In the darkness, he could measure the gap by breathing alone. Near breath. Far breath. Farther breath. The farthest breath was already clinging to the very edge of Ian's auditory range. The gap between each time that breath broke and resumed was growing longer. The interval of a living thing on the verge of stopping.
Night fog descended.
Something damp clung to the back of Ian's neck. Droplets beaded on his skin. Cold. Ian's skin received the cold, but his body did not respond. No shivering. The muscles maintained their heat. A machine does not respond to cooling.
Behind him, it was different. The fog was soaking into the group's clothes. Wet fabric adhered to skin. The chattering of teeth clicked through the darkness. Not one. Multiple jaws trembling at their own tempos. The sound of body heat draining. The sound of an engine's coolant running dry.
A cough from behind. Dry. Once. Twice. On the third, the cough turned to phlegm. The gulping sound of phlegm swallowed rather than spat leaked through the darkness. Whose it was, Ian did not distinguish. No need to distinguish. The same as not assigning serial numbers to parts. Labeling the replaceable was inefficient.
'Multiple warning signals. Operational limit imminent.'
Ian's stride did not shrink.
The cold hand hanging at his side gripped the belt loop. The boy's five fingers did not waver. Not yet. Still cold. The cold thing touched Ian's flank, and where it touched, the phantom pain slept. The arm that was not there was quiet. The empty space beyond the severed wrist was still. The boy's cold was pressing that space down, keeping it dormant.
Ian's brain received that stillness. Received and tagged it. 'Analgesic effect: nominal.'
Ian walked.
Darkness walked.
Scene 2. Disposal
A sound.
Something heavy collapsing. Dead leaves churned up all at once, exposing the wet earth beneath. Then a groan. Not a groan. The sound of all the air leaving at once. The sound of lungs emptying everything they held.
Ian's feet did not stop.
Behind him, the sound of a body thrashing. Hands scratching through leaves. Fingers clawing at dirt. A knee trying to fold beneath a rising body folded and buckled again, striking the ground. The leg had cramped. Muscles contracting and releasing beyond the owner's control. The foot that half a beat ago had been trailing Ian's stride. That foot was refusing its owner's commands.
"P-please—"
The voice was shredded. A man's voice. Like a bucket scraping dry earth from the bottom of an empty well. That voice was aimed at Ian's back. Ian's back. Invisible in the darkness. In the man's eyes, Ian's silhouette would have been receding. Like the only light going out.
Ian did not look back.
One set of footsteps fewer. Six became five. Ian's brain received it. Received and updated. The same process as deleting a line from an inventory ledger. Inoperable. Repair cost versus efficiency: unjustifiable. Deleted.
Maria's footsteps stopped.
Briefly. Very briefly. Half a step's worth of hesitation. Ian's footsteps were receding into the darkness, and behind her, the man's hands were clawing through the leaves, and Maria stood between.
The half step ended.
Maria lowered herself. Brought her mouth beside the man's ear. A whisper leaked out. The darkness swallowed the sound, but it reached Ian's ears.
"Slowing his stride is a sin."
The man's hand tried to grab Maria's ankle. In the darkness, the hand groped at empty air. Could not reach. Maria had already risen. Fingers scratched the leaves. The dirt where Maria had been. Maria's footprint. The warmth of what was left behind.
The sound cut off. Maria rose. Maria's footsteps resumed. Toward Ian's back. At steady intervals. Without looking back.
The sound of the man's hands scraping the leaves grew distant. With each step Ian advanced, that sound sank deeper into the thickness of darkness. Scraping became scratching. Scratching became rustling. Rustling became silence.
Even after it became silence, Ian's ears tracked the spot a moment longer. Not tracked—auto-scanned. Threat factor elimination confirmed. Probability of pursuit from behind: zero. Probability of sound: zero. Scan complete.
Remaining footsteps: five. Including Ian, six. Including the boy, seven.
Ian's stride did not change.
Maria's breathing reached him from three paces behind his back. Rough. But unshaken. Not the breathing of someone who had just abandoned a man. The breathing of someone who had shed something unnecessary. Lighter breathing. Maria's footsteps carried no hesitation. Not a fraction of rhythm change as she followed Ian's back. As though even the half-step of hesitation when leaving the straggler had already been a luxury.
The remaining lower-sector residents' footsteps followed Maria. No one looked back. Because Ian had not looked back. Because Maria had not looked back. Not looking back had become this group's rule. Look back, and you see. See, and you remember. Remember, and your stride slows. Your stride slows, and—Maria's whisper descends beside your ear.
In the darkness, the man's groaning vanished completely.
Ian's brain received that silence. Received and confirmed. Deletion complete.
Scene 3. Malfunction
His flank was hot.
Ian's feet stopped.
Not stopped. Were stopped. The brakes had been pulled on his legs. Not by his brain. The command to maintain stride was still being transmitted to the muscles. But the legs were not listening. A signal from his flank had overwritten the walking command.
What should have been cold was hot.
The boy's hand. Heat was pouring from the five fingers gripping the belt loop. Heat that penetrated the fabric. Ian's skin received it. Not ice. The opposite of ice. Boiling. The boy's fingers were boiling against Ian's flank.
The phantom pain woke.
The arm that was not there cried out. From the severed wrist, from fingertips that did not exist, from the empty space where bone had been—pain began to pulse like a heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud. What had slept while the boy's temperature was cold had sprung up with the heat. The blanket had been ripped away. The painkiller's effect had switched off.
Ian's jaw locked.
'Malfunction.'
Ian's gaze dropped. In the darkness, the boy's outline was faintly visible. Still gripping the belt loop, leaning against Ian's leg. Not leaning. Hanging. His legs had given out. The boy's knees were folded. Not standing—dangling from Ian's waist, being dragged. In the darkness, the drag marks of the boy's feet through the dead leaves were visible. Two lines. Two thin lines tracing the path Ian had walked.
Since when.
Ian's hand went down. Touched the boy's forehead.
A burn. Not a forehead—a furnace. Like heated steel pressing against Ian's palm. Beneath the skin, heat was boiling. The boy's entire body was a smelter. Not body temperature. A mutiny of body temperature.
Breath leaked from the boy's mouth. Not breath. The debris of breath. Shallow, fast, irregular wisps escaping between his lips. Dry coughs broke through. When the coughing stopped, the breathing returned. When the breathing returned, the coughing cut in.
Ian's legs were stopped.
Five minutes ago, when an adult male had collapsed, Ian's feet had not stopped. Had not even looked back. Deleted a line from the inventory and advanced. But now Ian's legs were stopped. Hand on the boy's forehead. In the dark. The same legs. The same muscles. The same brain issuing the same command to the same legs. Advance. Advance. Advance. The legs were not listening.
'The painkiller has malfunctioned.'
Ian's brain began to rationalize. Fast. Almost reflexively. Logic stacked in layers. Without the painkiller, the phantom pain returns. With the phantom pain returned, combat efficiency drops. With combat efficiency dropped, survival probability declines. Therefore repairing the painkiller is an efficient decision. Not emotion. Calculation.
'Efficient repair.'
The logic was flawless. Airtight. And yet Ian's hand was trembling. The hand resting on the boy's forehead. Faintly. Very faintly. A tremor that logic could not explain was rising in his fingertips. Logic said repair. The hand was doing something else. The palm on the boy's forehead was not drawing out the heat—it was checking for heat. Whether he was alive. Whether he was still alive.
Ian's brain received the tremor. Received and ignored it. Unclassifiable. Something that would not fit in any drawer. Not filed.
The phantom arm cried out again. Thud. Thud. The higher the boy's fever climbed, the faster the phantom pain's pulse beat. The painkiller was off. The switch had flipped in reverse. Cold had suppressed the pain; heat had woken it.
Ian's knees folded.
He crouched. In front of the boy. In the darkness, the boy's pale face was faintly visible. Lips cracked dry. Eyes half open. The open pupils could not find focus. Whether they were looking at Ian or looking at the darkness was impossible to tell.
The boy's hand still gripped the belt loop. Five fingers burning hot, and still not letting go. The brain drowning in fever still remembered: let go, and you are left behind.
Lose your grip, I leave you.
The boy's fingers remembered those words. The grip was weakening. Of the five fingers, the pinky loosened first. The ring finger was about to follow. The boy's hand was sliding. The fever was draining the strength from his muscles.
Ian's hand settled over the boy's hand. Did not pry the fingers off the belt loop one by one. Simply placed his hand on top. Covered the fingers that were coming loose. Hot. Inside Ian's palm, the boy's small hand burned like a flame.
The phantom pain surged. The entire absent arm rang as though plunged in fire. Ian's jaw muscles clamped tight. He ground his teeth. The grinding sound came through the darkness.
'Initiating repair.'
Scene 4. Illumination
Ian opened his mouth.
"Stop."
One word. One word dropped into the darkness severed the group's footsteps. Maria's feet stopped. The rest stopped. The rustling of dead leaves died all at once.
Ian unscrewed the cap of the canteen. Bit it and twisted. His right hand was holding the boy's neck. Not holding—supporting. The boy's head was tilted back. His palm cradled the back of the skull to keep the neck from folding.
He poured water.
Over the boy's forehead. The water ran down. Cold water meeting burning skin. The boy's body flinched once. Ian's hand gripped the boy's head firmly, holding it still. Water ran from forehead to temple, from temple to behind the ear. Hair soaked through. Mixed with dirt, it turned to brown water that trickled down the boy's neck.
Ian's fingers brushed the side of the boy's neck. Checking the pulse. Beating fast. Too fast. A bird's pulse. Wings that would not stop.
He tilted the canteen and poured half the remaining water over the boy's neck and chest. The clothes soaked through. Wet fabric clung to skin. The heat drank the water and sent up steam. The faint vapor was invisible in the darkness, but the moisture touched Ian's hand.
The boy's trembling subsided. Did not stop completely. But subsided.
Ian's thumb traced once across the boy's lips. Wiping the dirt from cracked lips. The way you wipe a machine. The way you clear foreign matter. The same motion as a mechanic thumbing dust from the mating surface of a part.
But the thumb traced once more.
Once was enough. The dirt had been cleared on the first pass. The second was unnecessary. Ian's brain detected the redundancy. Detected and ignored it. One more thing that would not fit in any drawer.
Maria was watching.
Five steps behind Ian's back. Even in the darkness, Maria's eyes were wet. Wet eyes watching Ian's hand. Ian's thumb wiping the boy's lips. Maria's knees were slowly trying to fold. Onto the dead leaves. Into the posture of prayer. But before Ian's "Keep your breathing down too" could land, Maria's lips were already moving. No sound. Prayer. This time it was not muscular habit. It was sincere. The sincerity of believing Ian was tending to the weak. The sincerity of believing a cruel god was showing mercy. The mouth that five minutes ago had whispered "a sin" to a fallen man was now reading holiness in Ian's hand.
Ian's hand checked the boy's forehead once more. The fever was dropping. Still hot. But one layer cooler than before. The phantom pain's pulse slowed by half a beat. Not fully asleep. Only showing signs of sleep.
"Keep your breathing down too."
Ian said. Lifting his hand from the boy's lips. No temperature in his voice. Water settled at the bottom of a basin. Not a ripple. Whether the words were for the boy or for the group was indistinguishable. They were for everyone.
Ian raised his head.
The sky was not visible. The canopy blocked it. Through the gaps between the leaves, only darkness looked down.
Then.
Light exploded.
Through the gaps in the canopy, something red poured down. The sky had been torn open. A red flare slashed through the pitch black. An illumination round. Above the forest ceiling, a ball of fire dangling from a parachute was descending slowly, pouring red light through the leaves.
The forest turned red.
Ian's vision flipped once. Red light settled on the leaves. Green vanished. Brown vanished. Everything became red. The dirt was red. The trees were red. The red light falling on the boy's pale face—
Bloodied earth.
The dirt where the man who had stepped on the mine had been scattered. The red smeared on the ferns. Ian's vision layered the present forest and that earlier dirt for one instant. Something red stained the boy's face. Not blood. Light. Light, but Ian's eyes read it as blood.
One beat.
Ian blinked. When the blink ended, the forest returned. The red light of the illumination round was still descending, but the dirt had vanished from Ian's vision. He was back.
Ian stood.
Maria was looking at the sky. The red light reflected in her wet eyes, trembling. Maria's mouth opened.
"The light—"
"Search party."
Ian cut her off. Maria's words. Maria's interpretation. What Maria was trying to believe.
"The patrol didn't come back. Verification unit has been deployed."
Ian's voice did not change. Even under the red light. Even with the boy lying soaked in fever. Even as the sound of a second illumination round bursting came from the distance.
Thump.
A second red glow stained the far side of the forest. The search radius was wide. They had not pinpointed this location yet. Yet.
Ian slid his hand behind the boy's back. Lifted the boy's body. Water dripped from the soaked clothes. The boy's head lolled against Ian's shoulder. The burning forehead touched Ian's neck. The phantom pain leapt. The absent arm cried out. Ian's jaw locked. Beyond the locked jaw, no sound escaped.
The boy's weight was light. Too light. Light enough to carry with one arm. A weight made of nothing but bone and heat.
Ian's legs moved.
"Follow."
Into the darkness. Into where the red light could not reach. Ian's back disappeared first. Maria followed. The group followed. No one asked. Where they were going. How far they would walk. There was nothing to ask. Ian's back was the direction. Ian's feet were the distance.
The illumination round was descending slowly. Until the ball of fire snagged on the canopy and guttered out, the forest was red.
Ian's eyes had their backs to that red glow. The boy in his arm. Cold eyes. Eyes that stayed frozen even while holding a boy boiling with fever. Frozen solid.
Those eyes vanished into the darkness.