It was freezing on the Northgate perimeter wall. The wind blew snow into the faces of the soldiers. Kael Vance did not shiver. He was a Veiled-Asset. His blood was engineered to be warm. He stood perfectly still and watched the tree line.
"Train approaching," Lieutenant Hark said.
He checked his watch. "Two minutes."
Hark was a Pure human. He was shivering inside his thick coat. He held his rifle tight to keep his hands from shaking. Kael did not hold a rifle. He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The ground began to shake. A low rumble came from the south. The Iron Artery was coming. It moved at 400 kilometers per hour. It did not stop for anything.
"I see movement," Kael said.
Hark looked up. "Where?"
"Sector Four. By the frozen creek."
Kael's eyes were better than Hark's. He saw the heat signatures in the dark. Three figures were running toward the tracks. They were fast. Much faster than humans.
"Discordi," Hark shouted. "Open fire!"
The Pure soldiers on the wall started shooting. Their shots went wide. The wind took the bullets. The Discordi kept running. They wanted to put debris on the tracks. If they derailed the train, they could loot the cargo.
Kael jumped off the wall.
He fell four meters and landed in the snow. He did not stumble. He ran toward the tracks. The first Discordi saw him. It was big, with a twisted spine that made it run on all fours. It roared and charged at Kael. It had a rusted metal spike in its hand.
Kael gripped his sword. The headache hit him instantly. It felt like a hammer striking his temple. He drew the blade. His power activated. For one second, he did not see the present. He saw the next three seconds. He saw three different futures at the same time.
Future 1: The Discordi tackles him. Kael falls. The spike goes into his neck. Kael dies.
Future 2: Kael dodges left. He slips on the ice. The Discordi breaks his leg.
Future 3: Kael steps right. He swings the sword low. He cuts the Discordi's legs.
Kael chose Future 3.
In the real world, Kael stepped right. The Discordi lunged at empty air. Kael swung his sword. The blade was sharp. It cut through bone. The Discordi fell screaming into the snow. Kael silenced it with a second strike.
The pain in Kael's head got worse. He blinked. His vision blurred. The train was very close now. The noise was loud enough to hurt. The horn blasted.
Through the snow, another figure appeared. It was not attacking. It was crouching by the rail. It held a heavy iron bar. It was trying to jam the bar into the track switch. Kael ran forward. He raised his sword.
The figure looked up. It was a boy.
He was maybe ten years old. He had a large gray growth on his jaw, a mark of the Aether-Fall. He looked terrified. Kael's power flared again.
Future 1: Kael swings. The boy dies. The track is safe.
Future 2: Kael kicks the boy. The boy falls on the rail. The train hits him. The boy dies.
Future 3: Kael stops.
Kael looked at the boy. The boy dropped the iron bar. He put his hands up. He was crying.
Kael was a soldier. He was trained to kill monsters. But this monster was a crying child. The train roared past them. The wind knocked the boy over. The wheels screamed against the metal rails. The ground shook violently.
Hark's voice crackled in Kael's ear. "Asset! Is the target down? Report!"
Kael looked at the boy. The boy looked at Kael's sword.
"Go," Kael said.
The boy stared.
"Run," Kael said.
The boy scrambled backward. He stood up and ran into the trees. He vanished into the dark.
The train finished passing. The noise faded. Kael stood alone by the tracks. He felt something wet on his face. He touched his cheek. His glove came away red. He was bleeding from his left eye.
"Asset!" Hark shouted over the radio. "Did you get him?"
Kael looked at the blood on his glove. He looked at the empty woods.
"Target eliminated," Kael lied.
He sheathed his sword. His head throbbed. He walked back to the wall. Kael climbed back up the metal ladder to the top of the wall. His boots made a hollow sound against the steel. Lieutenant Hark was waiting for him. Hark was staring at a small monitor on his wrist. The screen showed the heat signatures from the wall's sensors.
"Asset 7-2," Hark said. He didn't look up. "The sensors still show movement in the trees. You said the target was eliminated."
Kael stood straight. The wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead.
"I killed the primary attacker. The others retreated into the deep brush. They are no longer a threat to the rail."
Hark finally looked up. He saw the blood on Kael's face. "Your eye is bleeding again. You used the sword too much."
"It was necessary," Kael said.
"Is that so?" Hark stepped closer. He was shorter than Kael, but he held the rank. "The sensor log shows a small heat signature moving toward the West Tunnel. It's moving fast. If that Discordi reaches the tunnel, he can drop a charge on the structural supports."
Kael felt a chill that had nothing to do with the snow. The boy wasn't running home. He was running toward the tunnel.
"I will intercept," Kael said. He turned to the ladder.
"No," Hark said. He gripped his rifle. "You've used your limit. If you use the blade again, your brain will fry. I'm sending a drone."
Hark pressed a button on his wrist. A small, black flight-bot rose from the wall. It buzzed like an angry insect. It was armed with a thermal-seeking turret. Kael watched the drone fly toward the trees. In his mind, he saw the boy. He saw the gray callous on the boy's face and the tears in his eyes. If the drone found him, it wouldn't ask questions. It would just fire.
"Wait," Kael said. "The wind is too high. The drone will lose its balance. Let me go on foot. I don't need the sword for a child."
Hark froze. He looked at Kael with narrow eyes. "A child?"
Kael realized his mistake. He had used the word "child." To a Pure soldier like Hark, there were no Discordi children. There were only "small-frame hostiles" or "larval threats."
"I mean the small-frame target," Kael corrected quickly. "It is weak. I can capture it for interrogation. We need to know which clan sent them."
Hark stayed silent for a long time. The only sound was the howling wind and the distant hum of the drone.
"You're acting strange, Vance," Hark said. "The Veiling process is supposed to remove empathy. Maybe your Gen-12 batch is defective."
"I am not defective," Kael said. His voice was hard. "I am thinking about the mission. A dead Discordi tells us nothing. A living one tells us where the camp is."
Hark looked at the drone's camera feed on his wrist. "Too late. The drone has a lock."
On the screen, a red box appeared around a small, moving white shape in the snow. It was the boy. He was struggling through a snowdrift near the tunnel entrance. He was holding the iron bar again. He wasn't trying to destroy the tunnel. He was trying to use the bar as a walking stick to keep from falling.
"Target identified," the drone's mechanical voice spoke through Hark's radio. "Requesting permission to engage."
"Permission granted," Hark said.
"No!" Kael moved without thinking. He grabbed Hark's arm.
It was a crime for an Asset to touch a Pure officer. Hark's face went pale with rage. He pulled his arm back and slapped Kael across the face with the butt of his rifle.
Kael fell to one knee. The metal of the rifle cut his lip.
"You're done, Asset," Hark spat. He turned back to his screen. "Drone, fire."
A small thud sounded in the distance. A flash of orange light lit up the trees. Kael looked over the edge of the wall. A small plume of smoke rose from the snowdrifts near the tunnel. The white shape on the thermal feed disappeared. The boy was gone.
Hark looked down at Kael. "Go back to the barracks. Report to the Med-Bay for a sensor reset. And Vance?"
Kael looked up. His lip was swelling.
"If you ever touch me again, I'll have the Vial Masters wipe your memory and turn you into a worker-drone. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Lieutenant," Kael said.
Kael stood up and walked toward the barracks. His head felt like it was exploding. He had tried to do something good. He had tried to be human. The result was the same. The boy was dead, and now Hark was suspicious.
As he walked, Kael looked at his hands. They were shaking. He didn't know if it was from the cold, the power, or the realization that in this world, mercy didn't save anyone. It only got them killed faster.
He reached the barracks door and looked back at the Iron Artery. The massive train was long gone, disappearing into the dark, carrying its cargo to the next city. The system was still moving. The world was still cold. And Kael Vance was still a slave.