Benjamin heaved a sigh and forced himself off the bench inside the transport, crossing the darkening chamber towards the light of the outside. Standing at the threshold , shielding his eyes from the sudden glare that shrank his pupils and left him barely able to see the few people still inside the vehicle, he glanced at the looming gate of Hope’s Enclave.

It was the biggest single structure he’d seen in his life. The height of it alone took his breath away. The afternoon sun in the west cast a long, heavy shadow from the gate over Benjamin. He looked at the gate, bright light bending through it, and saw a tall, muscular man wearing thick-framed glasses standing next to the Mistrunner girl from the vehicle. She spoke with sophistication, Benjamin recalled from their journey, exactly the kind of direct and self-assured tone that told him she was powerful back home. Benjamin had taken pains to remind the Orrmisti princess – did they have princesses? – that she wasn’t in a position to be talking down to everyone around her anymore.

Of course, she didn’t seem eager to take the hint.

The woman – Afafa – had her back to him, her head covered by a layered orange cloth headdress. Looking at her, Benjamin couldn’t help but think of the day the news came to his town that New Tenoch was annexed by the Orrmist Confederation. Everybody knew what was going to happen next. Without New Tenoch to harry them in the south and the west, AmEterna would move their armies to the north and the east. The Nevish, of course, stood aside and let John Seid’s armies straight through to Rivenstad. What else could they do? Arit_nor was a vulnerable, unstable land, whose people were none too eager to fight a war against armies that included some of their own people.

That their hesitance to fight was logical, of course, did nothing to protect Rivenstad, to protect Benjamin’s family, from the fires of war.

He grit his teeth and tried to remind himself that the situation was not the fault of this lone woman standing in front of him. Well, she might be an imperious fool, a tool of a government, an aristocratic lady… but…

“Not a monster,” Benjamin muttered, struggling to steady himself and stop the shaking in his hands and knees. “Just a person. Just another person.”

He glanced over his shoulder then, a rush of panicked blood in his chest. Benjamin let out a quiet groan when he saw one of the other passengers – the orange-haired woman, Hope – staring at him with an expression of slight consternation, one eyebrow cocked and her lower lip twisted under her upper teeth. She stood in the vehicle’s doorway, her back held stiff, mouth shifting slightly with her breath.

She was breathing rather heavily, Benjamin noticed.

He gave a slight chuckle, one that he thought sounded apologetic, and turned to enter Hope’s Enclave.

At the gate, he stood for some time, while Afafa and the bespectacled man continued to talk quietly. Glancing around the interior of the strange city, he saw few people out. The plaza was huge, but aside from Afafa and the man – who must have been some kind of official here at the Ifterra Project, he supposed – there was practically no one. Seemingly empty, or at least outwardly calm, spires of iron and steel twisted and rose and reached up toward the sky, but never above that looming wall or its gate. Massive block-like buildings seemed to connect together as modules, with one huge rectangular structure sharing a corner or part of a side with another. To his right, not far from the gate itself, there was a tower – glittering in the afternoon sun.

Benjamin glanced up at its peak.

There was a boy there – no more than a young teenager, Benjamin thought. He was staring right down at Benjamin.

He scowled at the boy and stepped forward, through the gate, his hesitation forgotten for just a moment. By the time he remembered the gravity of his movement he’d already crossed into Hope’s Enclave and left every tattered trace of his old life behind.

The bespectacled man nodded in greeting to Benjamin as he approached. Afafa did not turn to look until a moment later. “Hello. Mr. Ryan Sawyer, I presume?” The man’s voice felt cold and unwelcoming to Benjamin, and he drew further within himself.

He stepped up to stand next to Afafa, making the effort not to turn to her as he did so. “My turn to talk, princess,” he half-whispered, trying to make himself sound as contemptuous as possible, without letting the anger show. He looked up at the man. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Right,” the man said. “My name is Robert Shula and I am the Deputy-Director of the Ifterra Project. I do apologize for the minimal welcoming committee, but there are some issues currently being resolved which required the attention of the Director and most of the Project’s core team. Of course, there are many thousands of people working on Ifterra Project, but we couldn’t have just anybody come here to welcome you folks, so…” he sighed, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “I got the job. And it’s my duty to help you all get acclimated.”

“First thing though, you need to find your accommodations and get set up with all that. Didn’t you bring anything?”

“I have a suitcase,” Ben said, gesturing back at the vehicle. “I assumed we would be moving those things inside. Are we just going to stand here with the gate open?”

Robert sighed and put his fingers to his forehead. “No, no.” He waved to someone standing beyond the gate. “We’ll get everything moved inside. And your suitcase – I assume it’s marked properly? – will be delivered to your room.”

“What a promising prospect you are,” Afafa muttered next to him, sarcasm dripping from each word. Benjamin stiffened and glanced over at her, moving only his eyes and not his neck. She snorted.

“In any case,” Robert went on, ignoring Ben’s obvious discomfort, “You’re going to be reporting to First-Mechanic Eliya Kormorant. Here.” He pressed a small device, metal and plastic, into Ben’s hand, and then an identical one into Afafa’s. “There’s a map of the city on this device, and it’s easier that you use that then rely on my descriptions. Also, I’ll instruct Mz. Kormorant to contact you in the morning. Since you’re in fabrication, she’s going to be in charge of everything you do, and I assure you that you’ll be in good hands.”

Benjamin nodded, looking down at the device and trying to take a step away, ignoring Afafa’s challenge. She did not wait for him to move.

“I was talking to you,” she said. “Ben, was it?”

He stopped, turned around slowly, and faced the Orrmisti girl’s scowl. “Yes?” he asked, holding out a hand with an open palm, a gesture of conciliatory confusion.

She didn’t fall for it. Ben’s heart jumped into his throat as he slowly breathed out. “You are impudent to speak to me this way. Who are you, anyway? Some common scoundrel thinking you know enough to tell others their business?”

Silently cursing himself even as he did so, Benjamin replied: “Well, what do you know? Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

“No, and I do not care.” Of course she didn’t. Of course. Benjamin scoffed.

“I see someone who doesn’t realize she’s not at home anymore.”

“You are not at home either, Ryan Sawyer.”

Yeah, thanks to you.

“But I know I’m not,” he shot back. “You don’t. I’ve been listening to you talk the whole way here, so I’d say I know a thing or two.”

Afafa stepped toward him, one finger held up and pointed at his chin from below. Benjamin clenched a fist, took a step towards Afafa. “You know nothing, boy –“ she began.

The air shifted around them. Ben felt the rush of something approaching, and stepped to the side, then froze when the glint of a steel blade passed right by him, between himself and Afafa.

Hope Reese, panting quietly and shallowly, held her sword, polished to a mirror, between Benjamin and Afafa. Benjamin turned toward her, and saw the sweat dripping from her brow as she leaned between the two almost-combatants.

“Are you two going to act like adults?” she hissed quietly. “Or am I going to have to drag you inside?”