Everything is not what it seems.

-Joern Salsberg

Hope stared down at the message, a missive from some unknown sender, and glanced over at Afafa. The other girl was standing in the opposite corner of their shared apartment and looked no less concerned than Hope herself felt.

Even reading the messages for the second time, Hope didn’t understand what this “Joern Salsberg” was trying to tell her. Or whether she could trust anything he said, or should regard him as some kind of con artist. Would he start trying to ask her for money soon? She glanced down at the messages.

First off I’m sorry for contacting you out of the blue like this. I only found this number in Ifterra Project’s systems recently. It says you’re a new recruit, software.

It also says you’re “Clearance Priority 7.”

I don’t know what that means, before you ask.

Hope recalled her earlier conversation with Annie Manex, when they were walking through the server room.

“And this is all secure from the outside, right?” she had asked, running her hands along the cases holding countless machines, some ancient and some newly built. Some of these computers dated from before the Desert and contained data written in formats current technology couldn’t read. Some had been installed by Annie herself, as she happily told Hope. There were thousands upon thousands of terabytes of data contained in this room, humming with warmth from a power source deep below and beyond the understanding of anyone in this land.

“Perfectly secure,” Annie said, “at least from the outside. Although it will be one of your responsibilities, working under me of course, to help shore up the security systems and make sure it all stays that way.”

“Then it’s possible there could be a security problem,” Hope said.

“Always,” Annie replied, as though it were obvious. “No system is completely secure. But these – you’d have to be physically in Hope’s Enclave if you wanted to access this data illegally or tamper with anything. There’s a reason we tend to vet people for trustworthiness, moreso than actual skill.”

“So you’re saying it’s not important that I barely know what I’m doing.” Hope’s voice was a bit rueful, but she hoped she didn’t sound resentful.

Annie laughed. “It’s not important, honestly, as long as you have the aptitude. People can be taught. Most people are quite smart, actually, I find. My predecessor thought that most people were idiots, and only a few could be made to learn any given thing. Well, he didn’t last too long. Too picky, too critical of every person he met.” She smiled. “Most people are quite smart, but what most people aren’t is trustworthy. Most folks don’t lack for intelligence but for character, at least I think so. And I’d say I know people a bit better than average, you know?”

Hope gave a slight smile and nodded. She recalled a pair of distrustful eyes watching her from the alleyway, just by the gate of Hope’s Enclave. Eyes she hadn’t seen since…

Hope blinked away the memory, shook her head, and scrolled down through the messages logged on her communicator. Her response: Who are you? Why are you contacting me?

The message had come back only a few minutes later. I’m Joern Salsberg. That’s all you need to know about me for now.

You’re new to Ifterra Project which means they might not have gotten to you yet. Tell me something, Hope Reese.

There was a delay of a few seconds between the messages. Just looking at them made Hope recall the way her breath had caught as she’d waited for the next message to come through. Had this Joern Salsberg been cut off, or disappeared? Or was this the part where he was going to ask her for money (not that she had any)?

The next message, of course, did come.

Do you trust the people around you?

Though hours had passed, that message remained unanswered. Hope stared at it, the letters sticking out at her, glowing, almost an accusation. She sighed, and glanced over at Afafa again.

The younger woman sat on the edge of her bed, folding and unfolding the letter in her hands. It was dry and yellowed paper, handwritten script in some language Hope could not read showing through the thinning material. That letter had seen a long journey, probably from the eastern reaches of the Great Border if Hope’s hunch was correct. She wanted to ask about it. She knew better than to ask about it.

She typed a response into her communicator:

No less than anyone else. Certainly no less than you.

The response came back almost immediately. That’s a good answer. You shouldn’t trust anyone. But neither should you ignore anyone’s advice. So listen to me: this place isn’t what it seems. You need to be careful.

Hope’s heart picked up its pace, she felt the familiar rush of panicked blood in her chest, a slight tightness in her lungs. She closed her eyes a moment and placed a hand on her neck. She was fine. She was safe in her apartment, and Char was there if she needed. She wrote a message in return: Careful about what?

Afafa sighed and folded the letter one final time, pushing it slowly into its envelope and setting it aside. She looked up at Hope, an expression of worry in her eyes. Hope turned toward her. “Is everything okay, Afafa?”

“Oh yeah, everything’s fine,” Afafa said, smiling suddenly. “Just irritating business things, that’s all. I think I have enough to deal with, what with Proxima Station, and now the Hierarchs want me to do their busywork even while I’m thousands of miles away from home.”

Hope nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, you have your task here – and, what, they’re trying to keep you focused on Council business instead?”

Afafa grinned. “Something like that.”

Hope’s communicator buzzed and she looked down at it. a file was attached. She opened it. ANALYSIS OF VOICE RECORDING, it read. A transcription below a visualization of the sound waves said: “Oh yeah, everything’s fine. Just irritating business things, that’s all…”

Under that, in red letters: LYING.

A message came after: What did I tell you? You need to be careful who you trust.

You could easily have faked that, Hope responded. Besides, it’s probably none of my business what Afafa is doing.

“Whom are you talking to?” Afafa asked suddenly, and Hope jerked her gaze away from her communicator. She shoved it in her pocket.

“No one important,” Hope said quickly, hoarsely.

“Oh?” Afafa said with a smile. They stared at each other for a moment, then Afafa laughed. “You should see the look on your face! It’s okay, I won’t force you to tell me all about your sweetheart back home or…”

“That’s not –“ Hope began, then sighed and shook her head. Perhaps it was better to let Afafa think what she wanted to think, and…

Isn’t that exactly what you fear from her? Char asked in the back of her mind. The less you trust her, the less she will be able to trust you, right?

I know, she said to Char, stepping toward the door. But maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to trust.

You know that mysterious person could be deceiving you, Char said. Or perhaps it’s a test – they’re trying to determine whether you’re a security risk.

I haven’t given him anything, countered Hope. So if that’s true I haven’t failed the test. “I’m going to go for a short walk,” she announced. Afafa nodded, her mind clearly elsewhere now as she stared at the envelope sitting next to her.

Hope stepped outside and walked between ancient metal structures all around her – ancient, meaning they were at least two hundred and seventy years old. Hope chuckled at the thought, and felt Char join in. Their shared mind rippled with amusement. Three hundred years is not such a long time, Char said. I am older than that, you know.

And yet you have never told me about the world before, Hope returned. She sensed a wave of mild trepidation from her eternal companion, a pause before the reply.

I did not come to the physical realm until near the end of the Desert, Char said. The Aether was churning and growing unsafe. I came not to wage war but to seek refuge, as though hiding under the swords of rivals could be safer than sheltering against a storm of humanity’s own making.

But it was safer, wasn’t it? You’ve survived, Hope replied. You’re still here now.

Yes, Char said. Aivor’s kin mostly survived the chaos unscathed. Those who did not - we were able to rescue most of them from the brink of death. And I was too fast for the warriors to catch, when things grew truly dangerous.

Hope grinned and flexed her wrist. “And I appreciate, truly, that you have been sent to lend me your swiftness.” She spoke aloud now, surrounded by empty air with no-one nearby. The place’s emptiness was strange still, a city with so few people that she could walk only a few minutes from her apartment and find a place so thoroughly isolated. She took in a deep breath – well, as deep as she could manage – and glanced up at the distant walls, iron and glass and stone and plaster scavenged from a dead world hundreds of years ago to create something new and shining and safe for the ones who remained behind.

Aivor did not send me, Char said. I came of my own accord.

Hope stopped. “I thought….” She continued, aloud. “I was…”

Favored? Chosen, even? Aivor has not chosen anyone for some time. You know this.

“But that’s only because the world has grown to be too much like it once was. Dark and clouded by the threat of war, refusing to unite.”

We have hardly spoken of such matters, said Char. But you must realize that Aivor’s will does not require unity. It requires truth, yes, and strength, but unity? The world as it is can still serve Aivor’s purpose. Yet… we, the fragments, have little guidance except this: to bring strength to humanity.

“That gift is enough, I think.” Hope nodded to herself more than to Char, who could hardly gesture back except inside Hope’s own mind. She let the breath flow out of her, nostrils flaring, and picked up her pace, weaving through corridors, between buildings, among the paths she imagined those who sought refuge from the end must have walked hundreds of times as they waited for the end and for the new beginning.

When one stands in a haunted place, one can feel its past. Not directly, not most of the time, particularly lacking the intimate knowledge that comes with familial connection, with personal history, with long-established dwelling or long-felt yearning. But one feels, nonetheless, the weight of what was once there. So it was with Hope between the walls of iron and steel. She walked – alone – in ruins which were neither so old nor so ruined. The isolation made her feel closer to the old world there, to the people who had once sheltered here, than she ever could have had she been surrounded by a crowd of fresh faces, had the city been alive, had she –

She stopped just short of barreling into Ariel Fares and knocking him to the ground. Catching her half-panicked breath, Hope stepped back and looked down, meeting Ariel’s wide eyes. “Hey, Hope!” Ariel said. “Odd seeing you here. I was just heading back to Zvenla Complex, to talk to you.”

Hope blinked. Ariel had recovered… quickly from the shock of almost getting run over. Hope was taller and broader than him, and couldn’t help wondering if he had ever before had cause to fear another. “I…” she began, blinking again to clear her mind for a moment. “I can talk, certainly. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Ariel reached into the pocket of his overlong coat and pulled out a small piece of paper – an envelope, tattered and made of thick paper. It was peasant stuff by comparison to the fine, almost translucent paper she’d seen earlier in Afafa’s hands – rough but workable, unlikely to tear under the most unrefined pen. Hope took the envelope. “What’s this?” she asked, looking at the back. It was marked for a Benjamin Alexander.

“I found it yesterday… it’s Ryan’s.”

Hope almost choked then. “You stole this letter from Ryan? Ariel, why would you do that?”

“Well, it was suspicious!” he said, holding up his hands in a boldly unapologetic gesture. “It was just sitting there, and it was awfully suspicious, so I took it to read later when I wasn’t there anymore and he wouldn’t get mad at me.”

Hope sighed, holding the letter out towards Ariel and rubbing her fingers against her forehead. “Okay,” she said. “First thing: don’t steal people’s private letters. That’s incredibly unkind of you, Ariel.” She looked down at him, where he stood, hands now in his pockets, gaze downcast. But he did not take the letter. “You should take this and return it to Ryan, and apologize.”

“You mean return it to Benjamin Alexander, don’t you?” Ariel countered, almost petulantly. Hope wondered if she’d injured Ariel’s pride a bit too much, but he had certainly earned it.

“What are you talking about?” Hope asked once she’d processed Ariel’s words. “You can’t just deliver this letter by hand yourself, and besides, if he hasn’t sent it yet –“

“Oh, I see,” Ariel said. “You think this is a letter he sending to somebody else. No. It’s addressed to him. It’s addressed to Benjamin Alexander. In Rivenstad, in the village of Heprit.”

“So he’s writing to someone in Heprit,” Hope said. The name of the village was not familiar to her.

“No,” Ariel said again. “I did some reading, about Rivenstad and the war and everything. Heprit was a Yersh Warders village. A Drisi village.”

Hope’s heart skipped a beat. “And?” she said, though she knew she could not feign ignorance. It was obvious what Ariel was going to say next.

“And the village doesn’t exist anymore.”

A wave of revulsion and disgust and – strange – guilt hit Hope then, and she instinctively clutched the letter to her own stomach. “You have to give this back to him,” she said. “You have to give this back immediately. I can’t believe you stole this, but now you have to give it back. Ariel.” She reached out, grabbed him by the shoulders, and for the first time she saw fear in his eyes. “You have to give this back. Go back right now, hope he’s not there, slip it under his door or something. Just give it back.” Her breath became short. If I were him right now, I’d… I’d….

I’d want to kill Ariel for this.

“Okay, okay!” Ariel cried out finally. “I’ll give it back! I will! You don’t have to – come on! I’m going now, I’ll give it back.”

Hope nodded as Ariel started toward the Zvenla Complex. “I’ll go with you,” she said.

“But…” Ariel trailed off, and Hope looked down at him sternly. “But he lied. About his name, I mean. He’s not Ryan Sawyer. He’s Benjamin Alexander.”

“I don’t care,” Hope said immediately as she tried to more quickly herd Ariel toward the building where Benjamin/Ryan lived, as she wondered how he would react if he learned that Ariel had stolen this letter out from under him – possibly even read it. She looked down at the envelope, in Ariel’s hands though she could not remember handing it back to him. It wasn’t sealed, and the flap was crumpled a little.

I don’t care, she thought, but she couldn’t get the image out of her mind: the clip of Afafa’s voice, only now it was her own voice, saying I don’t care, and under it in glowing, hateful, biting red letters:

LYING.