The day my girlfriend Ashley died in my arms explosions also resonated. Not of death, though. But of joy. Fireworks. Fireworks I had ordered for New Year’s Eye. Fireworks I had ordered to surprise her when I asked her to marry me, hoping she’d say yes. I always thought it odd that the same sound can mean happiness or despair depending on the circumstance. And that day, the sounds did not match the events.

Ashley must have gotten nervous when I proposed. And perhaps it had been my fault, even if I had thought it a perfect night. In front of everyone in the district’s main square, televised for the rest of the district to see. Just at midnight. Just as the New Year began. I guessed that was the worst of it. I guessed that was what hacked my soul. When she drank a Eugenex vial and died from the allergic reaction that ensued.

I wanted to grieve for her, with her, but it was not me who was able to mourn her, but her brother. Her brother who shoved me aside to lament his sister’s passing. Her brother who would forever blame me for her sister’s death. As for me, even though I felt my heart gone, even though I felt time still, I knew it still moved. I knew it always went on. Twenty-one minutes later I received a job request from an Achroite. And had to go save him from the Bridge. Because life went on.

And I guessed that’s what would happen now. Eventually people would remove the debris. People would go about their regular business as if nothing had happened. And only those affected would be forced to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. And act as if nothing had happened. Because time never stood still. Because time always continued. Regardless of how you felt.

And just like that New Year’s Eve, just like in Wexford, what blasted me was not the explosion, not the debris, not even the heat, but the darkness, the void of the remnants of the building that exploded next to us. And the wails, the cries of those injured. I could tolerate the darkness of the Bridge, because it was mostly silent. And vast. I could move. I could tolerate the tear gas, because despite the laments, I could move, despite the burn in my eyes. But enclosed in darkness, being pelted by hollers, I could not tolerate. Anyone would have believed otherwise. Anyone would have preferred fallen debris to the Bridge anytime. I did not. Brought me back to Wexford. A part of it my mind did not let me forget.

I glanced at Almyra, and the second I saw only dust shrouded her, my mind burst my heart. She was safe. My family probably not. I cleared some debris that had fallen on me and helped Almyra crawl back into the street, where people darted for their loved ones, as shoals toward a food source. And gravity ripped my heart out of my chest, because I could not help them. Because I wanted to help them, but my family came first. They had escaped Eudora’s air raids, only to perish by Zielkkenhom’s ones.

And then I spotted Almyra’s forces. An ice blade seared my veins. A flame one sleeted my heart. And gravity pulsed through my nerves. I glanced at Almyra, hoping for an answer that would not come. “Did you have something to do with this?” I said. “Did you set up the blast? Your goons did? They were supposed to be here for protection.” I regretted the words the second I spoke them. Because wrath had gotten the best of me.

Almyra’s eyes glistened as diamond blazes that a stream doused. “I shall disregard that last comment, Mr. Cavanaugh, as your mind must be erratic due to concern for your family,” she said. “I had no relation with the blast. I promise you. I fulfilled my part of the deal. Bernhart security forces are here for protection. Should they have failed to execute their mission, I shall severely punish them once we find Mildred.”

“How can I know if what you’re saying is true?” I said. “I want to believe you, Almyra, but the blast happened right after your forces arrived.”

Almyra stepped toward me, and held my hand. Gazed right at my eyes, my soul, a smile that sparkled joy. “I did not set up the blast,” she said. “Trust me, Mr. Cavan … Cael.”

It was the first time she had called me Cael. And her gaze, as if I could peer into her very soul. Everything pointed to her. But she wouldn’t have set up this whole thing with Mildred just to kill me, right? She had no reason to. Unless Mildred and Samuel wanted to kill me. They wouldn’t have, right? But then her smile wavered into sadness for a seventh of a second, a gravity pulse shot at my chest.

She was about to let go of my hand, and I was about to lose the only Enhanced I had considered trusting, the only Enhanced I had hope for, besides Aisha. And I almost did, my heart told me to do that, but my mind told me otherwise. And both had been right before. I felt her fingers slide, but forgetting the gravels my mind barreled at my brain, I held her hand before she pulled it back, and said, “I’m too involved to leave you now. I trust you, Almyra.”

She smiled again, though it did not erode the gravels. I did not expect it to. But her smile withered for a second. She thought I could not see it. But I had. I would have asked her something, but I did trust her. I thought. And prayed I had made the right decision. Before it was too late.

I was about to call my family, but I spotted the communication lines on the floor. And had to do it the old way, just like in the actual 1920s. We wended our way past the crowds, into each street of the ville, where I glanced at Bernhart’s forces helping the injured. Almyra had told the truth after all. Or at least it seemed that way.

We continued, leaped past the debris, did not look at the injured, at the corpses, because I would have stopped and helped them had I seen them, and I had to save my family. Other people had Bernhart’s help. My family probably not.

But then I spotted Bernhart’s guards tending to someone who could not move his legs. I smiled. And even Almyra did. The real smile. The one you could not fake. “Mom, Dad!” I cried.

My mom’s eyes shone brighter than the sun. “Dear.”

“Son,” my dad said. And with each step my dad took, I could see him trying to hide the pain in his face. Because a soldier had shot at his knees back at Wexford. And almost lost his legs. But he did not. And even if he had, he would have taken care of his family. Even now. He still worked. In whatever jobs he could scrap by. I had told him that he didn’t have to exert himself like that, that my income was more than enough to support us, but he would have none of that. He didn’t want to be a burden. He wanted to feel useful. He wanted to fulfill the mission God had entrusted him—to take care of his family. Something that took me a while to understand.

I raced toward them and hugged them, because for a second there, I thought the blast had robbed me of them.

“When we saw the news of the blasts, I …” my mom said, but her voice broke.

“Don’t die, son,” my dad said, his voice also broken. Who then turned to Almyra, to keep himself from crying. “Here’s hoping my lad wasn’t too much of a burden to ya, lass.”

She laughed. Smiled at the normal family interactions. But her smile then wavered, because she would not have that. Could not. I guessed to her, normal meant something else.

So I just seize her hand and pull her in. “Come Almyra, you’re almost—”

And then something clouted my back and I flinched, the raw Eugenex wound, as if it were a magnet of sorts. A healer.

The Harmonists were distributing healers to the injured. And not just any Harmonists. But the Limbs. The top command. Marina Acquae. Terrance Vilijoen. Belisario Francisco Bolivar. Only ones missing were Nathaniel Norcross and the elusive Emilia Baudelaire. I knew Emilia enjoyed a low-profile, but I wondered where Nathaniel was. I didn’t think him one to miss an opportunity to put on a show like a low-grade politician hoping to bribe his constituents with cheap trinkets, as if he and the other Limbs actually cared about the poor and injured. I just trusted Tim and Ellie were smart enough to stay home. Safe.

Terrance Vilijoen, a refugee like myself, from the EF’s southern territories, was the Harmonist leader. Sort of leader, more like their mouthpiece, because I wasn’t sure he was Freedom’s Voice, their disembodied voice of a leader, but I’d have wagered an arapaima that he was. Odd decision at first sight, as Terrance did not immediately strike leadership, or even figurehead quality. Sturdier than average, though not by much, a diamond jaw, and just as tall as an Impure. Head shaved only at the sides and back, which made him look younger than he actually was, as he looked about my age, but he was five years older than me. And his eyes always blazed a spark of hope. So in a regular situation, Terrance would have been nothing but a peon, but this was no regular situation. And he was no regular person.

Terrance Vilijoen commanded with his voice. To the point that even though his voice sounded as flute playing a low-key song, Terrance garnered as much attention as Zielkkenhom, if not more, because Terrance didn’t even need Eugenex to address a crowd. Just pretend he was a savior. If only he worked for peace, helped Aisha and I gather support for Cael’s Law reform, or even a change to Amendment 28 of the Constitution, instead of falling prey to vengeance, if all the Harmonists did, we’d be free by now. Because boisterous agitators like him roused the masses, started rebellions, and paved the way for bloodshed, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces of their insanity, and live as remnants of their former selves, once their loved ones forsook this earth. An insanity, a bloodshed I would prevent if I had to.

“So, fellow Naturals, Impures,” Terrance said. “Look at who actually cares about you. Look at who wills for your wellbeing. Us, Harmonists.” He glared at me. “Bridger Cael Cavanaugh is a patsy, working for the Achroites. For the Bernharts. For Zielkkenhom. For those who oppress us.”

I signaled my family to leave. Before it worsened. But they stayed. A gravity blast burst my heart.

None noticed my signal. None except Marina Acquae—the name she chose for herself, hoping to escape her past—the first Limb, and one of the Harmonist founding members, who could strike more fear into me than any of the Harmonists, right on par with Nathaniel, because Terrance and Belisario did not care about me. Marina and Nathaniel did, but not in the usual way; they were flames, and my family a dry leaf. But I’d be the wave that drowned them if I had to.

Marina Acquae towered over Terrance, and she was how I pictured Ruth would look like. About twice my age, a heart shaped face that no wrinkles scratched, and from which long sepia hair flowed beneath her neck; almost as regal as any Fengel woman, even though Marina wore no jewelry but a locket, and a slightly sturdy body that did not detract from its beauty. But I still could not gaze into her eyes. Because I had seen them before.

That was the worst of it, gashed my veins. Marina Acquae used to be my teacher, the teacher for my neighborhood, even taught me in Samuel’s house so the authorities wouldn’t catch her teaching refugees. She even agreed to help me change things for the Naturals. But things did not go as planned. Because her past caught up to her. And her son and husband paid the ultimate price.

A smile had always brightened Marina’s face, and hope always made its home in her eyes, until that day. Marina had always kept her hope, despite almost being trafficked to pay for her family’s debts to a Fengel loan shark, until that day. Until the day she lost everything, in her mind.

Thanks to her kind smile, Marina Acquae used to remind me of my mom, who always smiled, whose eyes always glinted hope and joy. And I held Marina in kind regard because she gave food and water to Eudora’s refugees. But she smiled no more. Thought I still hoped for her. Because I’d never forget her kindness to those who needed it most. I prayed that she regained her senses, before her actions forced me to fight the Harmonists.

“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion is a right.” Belisario paused to let his words sink into the minds of those he wanted to twist to suit his agenda.

In his late forties. Or early fifties more likely. Belisario Francisco Bolivar. Name he gave himself when he joined the Harmonists. Fair-skinned Latino from the southern territories. A heavy accent. Real name was Manuel something. I couldn’t remember, but I guessed that was the point. He thought himself a liberator, like the founding fathers of Latin America’s independence movements. At first glance you would have though time travel had been discovered. Belisario had the long white hair of Francisco de Miranda. The sideburns of Simon Bolivar. The first name of Belisario Porras. And the Napoleon-like uniform commanders used to wear those days. A denim scarlet shirt with gold shoulder pads, a mustard waistband, and such tight trousers that I could not figure out how he could move in those things. Would have been funny to look at, like a man at a play, but Belisario was no laughing matter. He came up with the plan to set off the bomb that snatched my brother’s soul. Wrath drowned any laughter my throat would sing.

Belisario Francisco Bolivar hailed from poverty in search of a better life, from a southern country that used to be mired in a dictatorship until the people rose up and deposed their corrupt leader, but I could not even begin to understand why did he want to move to the mainland? The Knights of Malta, an international aid organization dedicated to truly helping those afflicted by strife and oppression all around the world, and keeping faith alive in Eudora’s soulless European Federation, coordinated underground railroads to take Naturals to freedom in the southern territories. All from their headquarters up north in Pearfanæg that doubled as a shelter for homeless Naturals, so the Ánwealdesbord would not shut it down.

Most southern territories were quite autonomous, so the laws that discriminated against and restrained mobility for Naturals and Impures in the mainland had no effect south of the Rio Grande. Most of them, though. Part of the articles in the treaties that led the southern territories to join peacefully to Zielkkenhom grand union for the continent, though not that they had that much of a choice. Was just Zielkkenhom pretending to be magnanimous. The Esneas and the Naturals even lived in the same intendancies down south. And the stark divisions that pervaded core USN life did not exist in the southern territories. And yet, Belisario had deliberately sneaked into the mainland.

I guessed he really believed in the Harmonists’ ideals, like Marina, but how could Belisario have forgotten about God so easily? Replaced Him with terrorists who had no influence in the southern territories? And then it clouted me. If I had lived what Belisario and Marina had to go through, would I have become a Harmonist as well?

I knew most people from the southern territories were not like Belisario, though. He only paid lip service to Latin America’s liberators. Just twisted their words, their ideas, to suit the Harmonist agenda, to satiate his lust of power and control. How many would fall if the Harmonists won?

I had met great Latinos. Aisha Lexington jolted my mind. Half-Panamanian, and part Brazilian, and American. She was the sweetest girl, nice to everyone, reminded me of my little sister Ellie, even though Aisha was an Achroite. Was the first Achroite who hired me, actually. And granted me Class A rank. I guessed natural law pulsed strong as a stream in her. Though, she might have been baptized, and the Holy Spirit been strengthening her this whole time.

Flame machetes hacked my veins, as a butcher knife that scaled a fish, when I thought we had the technology to enhance our genes to attain telekinesis, and live for years without food and water thanks to Eugenex, and yet, we could not figure out how to distribute food and water to those who needed it. But then again, I guessed it wasn’t a matter of not figuring out how, but a matter of us not wanting to do so.

Not because it would be difficult. Not because it would be particularly expensive. But because if we actually helped those in the southern territories prosper, including those in the EF’s southern colonies, then Zielkkenhom and Eudora’s dominion would shatter as a chopped sugar cane, and they would not be able to pretend to be charitable towards the poor, since what they were doing was imposing their worldview on them, colonizing their minds, and in Eudora’s case, their land as well. Though not that Zielkkenhom was that far off. …

I pleaded to my family again, cried even. They nodded and skulked away, while the crowds zeroed in on my head.

Marina just watched. But turned her head once she saw me. And she clenched her fists. I guessed vengeance had not yet fully overtaken her. Thank God.

“He went to save Almyra Bernhart, an Achroite,” Marina yelled. “Instead of you, my fellow naturals, my cherished Impures. Or am I mistaken?”

I pleaded the same to Almyra. I did not want her hurt, but she stayed. And did not change her mind. “I am too involved to leave you, Cael,” she whispered. I chuckled, the last one I would have in a while.

“He sprinted right past me,” a Natural said. “And did not do a thing.”

“I cried for him, because I needed help,” an Impure said. “And he did not answer my call. He went to the Bernhart girl.”

“I was in the Towers during the blast, and he chose to save Almyra Bernhart, even though she had bodyguards, instead of my wife,” the man whose wife had lain under a statue said. “When he came to my wife, when he came to help us, it was already too late. And my wife had perished. Because he did not come. Because he chose an Achroite who could defend herself, over a Natural.”

“Those bodyguards betrayed her,” I hollered. The words drowned in the glinting flames of the Impures and the senseless doubts of the Naturals. But my next words would not drown. “How can you forget about God?” I bellowed. “How can you forget about Jesus? About saving your enemy? I fought for you. For the district system. For your freedom. Your food and water. Your greenhouses. I fought so you did not have to depend on Zielkkenhom, on me, on anyone for food, but on yourselves. I fought for raising the districts’ quota. And now, you’re going to throw that away, you’re going to jeopardize your eternal salvation, forget everything I have done for you, everything God has done for you, everything, just for a stupid healer?”

The Naturals remained silent. Hauled on one side by the Harmonists. And on the other side by me. Even the Impures’ face had changed. Their glinting eyes had stopped glinting. And doubt remained. At what I was saying. And at what the Harmonists were saying. Terrance stood on top of debris. But I leaped to an even higher debris pile. And almost lost my footing, but I flexed my knees on time. So that I stood taller than him. Because in speeches, in politics, in everything, perception ruled. Sadly.

“Cael—”

“God does not manipulate,” I hollered, from the depth of my soul. Because I believed the words. “Jesus does not manipulate. He leads with the Truth. The Harmonists lead with lies and twisted half-truths that only serve themselves, and will only enslave you, like the Achroites do.” I paused for a second to let the words sink in. Hoped that they had. “But you’re smarter than that. I know it. God does. So don’t trade your eternal salvation for terrorist lies. And live, not for the Harmonists, but for God, for Jesus,” I said. “Soon, we will change things, without violence,” I declared. But I was not certain I could fulfill that last part. Only try.

“Our country is a powder keg, and we are like people smoking in an arsenal. A single match will set off an explosion that will consume us all. I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you where. Some ill-conceited attack right here in the capital will set it off.”

I glared at the Harmonist Limbs. “Do you want to be the fools who set it off?” I stared at the crowds. “Or do you?”

Sometimes I wondered if Esne guards could storm in and shoot the Harmonists Limbs once and for all. Or if I could have been justified in killing them, but it slashed my veins, the thought of murdering someone in cold blood. Zielkkenhom and his goons didn’t care, but they still hadn’t taken decisive actions against the Harmonists leaders. County jail for most. I guessed murdering Terrance and his sycophants would have ignited an uprising, and Zielkkenhom was no fool. Too drunk with power to jeopardize it over glorified graffitists. Because for better or for worse, they had scaled down the bombings after the water plant incident that snatched my brother’s soul.

I guessed the Harmonists found out violence did not win people’s minds. Violence did not brainwash reborn minds. Slanderous rumors and half-truths about innocent people did. And the Harmonists spared no target for their lies. So although I had thought them just a nuisance once they dropped their weapons, I had heard them talk, I had seen, I was seeing the false hope they kindled in the Naturals’ eyes, even in the Impures’ eyes; and saw what I did not want to see, what Zielkkenhom and the Enhanceds did not want to see. The Harmonists were an illness, spreading as a sailfish over our nation. And we did not mind. Worst was, I wasn’t sure we could stop it once it infected our brains, our veins, and spread all over our nerves, until war remained the sole cure.

But if I killed the Harmonists right now, if any Esne guard did, then was I so different from the Enhanceds they criticized? Were we so different from the Harmonists? If we used the methods of the enemy, I guessed that kind of made us the enemy as well. I guessed it emboldened their claims. And turned us into hypocrites. But I was not them.

The crowds just stared at me, so did the Harmonists, but Marina and Nathaniel seemed to clamor for such an explosion. Thank God Terrance was their leader. He was sensible. Or at least he looked like that, but I could have been mistaken, as I had been before about someone else.

The Naturals and Impures did not say a word, until one dared to spoke. I stepped down in case I had to sidestep or something, but he said, “We give you one last chance, bridger Cael Cavanaugh.”

But before I could even smile, or even breathe, a breaking news alert emerged in our smartwatches. Julius’ address to the nation was about to begin. In the Square of the Naturals to boot. The caption:

Congressional reform on the Autonomous City system.

The bridger district system.

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