“Deactivate?” Oli scoffed as he injected Ehzi with a stim. “You can’t possibly be that igged, Mal.”

  Ehzi smacked Oli across the face. She ignored the pain and wound up to strike the pyrojack again, daring him to utter the wrong words. “You’re lucky to still be breathing, shitlicker.”

  Oli took a step away from the crate that had been used as an operating table. Mal wiped his hands with a peroxide-soaked rag, having finished suturing Ehzi’s wound with the few undamaged medical instruments they could salvage from the remains of the lab.

  Oli held up his hands in surrender. Mal had decided not to kill him so he could assist in digging the bullet from Ehzi’s gut. Now that she was out of danger, Oli knew his continued existence was in question. “No offense,” he said to Mal. “It’s just… everyone knows there’s no way to simply turn a burner off.”

  “No one knew how to turn a child into a burner either,” said Mal.

  “True. And maybe one day I’ll know how they did it…” Oli paused when he saw the looks of disdain targeting him. “Not that I would ever carry out such a… travesty of the craft. But I can say without a doubt that there is no way to reverse the procedure.”

  Mal turned his attention to Sammar, curled up under a blanket on the far side of the supply pod. The exhausted boy had fallen asleep almost immediately once he knew Ehzi would be safe.

  “How long?” he asked Oli.

  “I hadn’t finished the tests before the lab was destroyed. Even if I had, there’s a very wide margin of error. My guess would be at least a month. They should have calibrated enough time for him to be inducted and settled inside the Protectorate before he… before the detonation.”

  Mal nodded. Ehzi studied his face. She sat up, the stim fading her pain. “Go clean up your lab, Oli. I’m tired of looking at you.”

  Oli knew better than to respond. She waited until the pyrojack left the room before turning to Mal.

  “That’s why you brought him here, isn’t it?” she asked. “To try and deactivate him.”

  Mal slumped onto a container, exhaustion taking effect.

  Ehzi took a deep breath before speaking. “What I said… about you not wanting the boy to win glory. It was a shit thing to say. Truth – you’re the best fighter I’ve ever known. You ask me, you’ve earned more glory than all the X-10 Rebels combined.”

  He rubbed his eyes before looking up to face Ehzi.

  “The day my father said goodbye to me, he took me for a walk by the Regeb Channel. I was toxxed at first, ‘cause word was there was a tunnel near the channel that folks claimed was chock with snakes. I’d never seen a snake before and was yabbin’ the whole way what I was gonna do when I caught one. But he sat us down on the edge of the channel and just watched the muck float by.”

  Mal cleared his throat. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d strung so many sentences together at one time. “I don’t remember what he said to me… something about going away to fight for our people. And then he cried. First time I ever saw him scared. Heard his voice crack. He told me he didn’t want to go but he had no choice.”

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  Mal removed his glove. Stared down at the X-10 brand on his hand. “I hate all the stories of my father. Of the glory he claimed when he torched inside Avalon. Darus Gomes, the brave, fearless hero. Gotta be solid, righteous to the core to become a burner, yeah? That’s why we keep them alive in stories and songs. People always thought I leeched off my father’s glory. That I was too weak to give it all to the struggle like he did. When I pass his murals or hear the songs, all I see is the fear I caught in his eyes that day at Regeb Channel. All I think about is how he died alone, far from everything he knew.”

  Mal looked across the room toward Sammar. He turned back to Ehzi, locked his eyes to hers. “I’ve seen the other side of glory. I’m not delivering the boy.”

  Ehzi breathed deeply. Then she nodded. “Fuck Zeta Dawn.”

  They grinned at each other.

  “If they find you, you’ll be under dirt,” she said.

  Mal nodded. There were worse reasons to die.

  “What will you do?” Ehzi asked.

  ///

  Mal watched Ehzi hug Sammar from his seat on the skitter. They stood outside a crowded rig station. Ehzi and Sammar paid no mind to the people jostling past to line up as a large coach bound for upper EastSec rumbled into the bay.

  Ehzi hid her pain as she struggled to get down on one knee to look Sammar in the face. She dabbed a stray tuft of his hair back into place while she talked to him. Mal marveled once again at the ease of her affection. He would miss her. Not in the same aching way he missed Nekka, but he would feel her absence until his end.

  They hugged again, and Ehzi stood to watch Sammar cross the curb toward the skitter. Mal nodded at Ehzi, who flashed her half-smile at him one last time. They’d said all they needed to say earlier in the day when they left Oli’s facility. After two days in the Salvage Sector, Ehzi had recovered enough to travel. Oli had removed Sammar’s tracker and Mal attached it to a hauler bound for the Fabrication Zone.

  Ehzi turned and climbed onto the coach without looking back. Mal and Sammar watched it roll out of the bay and down the dusty road.

  “I hope she won’t be too sad,” said Sammar as he climbed into the back of the skitter.

  “She’ll be okay,” said Mal. He kicked the skitter to life and started up the road.

  “Where will we go, mister?” asked Sammar.

  “The name’s Mal.”

  “I know.”

  “We’re going to a place called the Backlands. You heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “It’s way out, beyond Lasco.”

  “That’s far.”

  “It is.”

  Mal looked at the rear view mirror. Sammar looked small and vulnerable. But his expression was strangely calm – even brave – for someone so young. Mal admired the little dustkicker.

  “You’ll see things out there that you’ve never seen before,” said Mal. “Turtles and owls… maybe even some wolves.”

  “What are wolves?” Sammar leaned forward, his imagination sparked.

  “They’re like dogs, but bigger.”

  “I would love to see wolves.”

  Mal nodded. He silently promised to show Sammar a wolf before their time was up.

  He maneuvered the skitter onto the throughway that would take them back into Baho and then to Lasco District. Behind them in the distance, the top spires of Avalon Protectorate gleamed. Far ahead, the barren waste of the Backlands awaited.

  Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this story. Especially those of you who commented, rated, suggested edits and caught my many typos (looking at you Mik).

  The Beacon and will feature all new characters -- here's a sneak that'll give you sense of where it's set: